The Green Revolution transformed the way agriculture was practised in India, especially in Punjab and Haryana. The economics of high-yielding varieties of paddy and wheat, supported by a guaranteed buyer (the government) and minimum support prices led to a crop duopoly, and vitalised the practice of stubble burning.

According to an official report, more than 500 million tonnes of parali (crop residues) is produced annually in the country, cereal crops (rice, wheat, maize and millets) account for 70% of the total crop residue.

Stubble burning begins around October and peaks in November, coinciding with the withdrawal of southwest monsoon.

The prevention of stubble burning is not guaranteed by only banning and punishing the farmers. In order to prevent this from happening in the future, there needs to be a permanent and effective solution.

• The Indian farmers have been practising stubble burning for decades now and multiple factors lead to it. Some of them are:
  • One factor is being a cheaper way to get rid of crop debris.
  • Another is the boom of Mechanised Harvesting, which leaves behind 1- 2ft tall stubble which takes around 1.5 months to decompose on its own.
    • However, farmers do not have sufficient time as they need the soil prepared for the next crop,so instead of waiting for the residue to decompose they burn it.

Issues Associated with Stubble Burning in India

• Environmental Degradation:Stubble burning emits toxic pollutants in the atmosphere containing harmful gases like Carbon Monoxide (CO), methane (CH4), carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC).
  • These pollutants disperse in the surroundings and eventually affect air quality and people''s health by forming a thick blanket of smog.This is one of the primary causes of Delhi''s air pollution.
• Soil at Risk:Soil becomes less fertile, and its nutrients are destroyed when the husk is burned on the ground. It generates heat that penetrates into the soil, causing an increase in erosion, loss of useful microbes and moisture.
  • Due to the loss of ‘friendly’ pests, the wrath of ‘enemy’ pests has increasedand as a result, crops are more prone to disease. The solubility capacity of the upper layers of soil have also been reduced.
• Climate Change Induced Stubble Burning:The shortened harvesting season due to climate change has forced the farmers to rapidly clear their fields between the kharif and rabi crops, and the quickest of these ways is to burn off the remaining stubble post-harvest.
• Increased Backing, Increased Burning:Policy moves in subsequent decades has included the introduction of subsidies for electricity and fertilisers, and ease of access for credit in agriculture has significantly increased the crop yields and agricultural productivity, that has in turn cemented the issue of stubble burning.

Chhattisgarh Model of Stubble Utilisation

• An innovative experiment has been undertaken by the Chhattisgarh government by setting up gauthans.
• A gauthan is a dedicated five-acre plot, held in common by each village,where all the unused stubble is collected through parali daan (people’s donations) and is converted into organic fertiliser by mixing with cow dung and few natural enzymes.
  • This scheme has also generated employment among rural youth.

Politics

• Production of rice in large swathes of areas surrounding the NCR is largely a Green Revolution phenomenon after the mid-1960s. The Green Revolution, as we know, was intended to somehow achieve self-sufficiency in food grain production. It was not as important as to which areas the rice production came from. Research on developing high-yielding varieties was biased towards plain areas with higher potential for irrigated agriculture. The technology thus developed was not scale-neutral. More so, unlike in the traditional paddy-growing areas in eastern, southern, and central India where rice is the principal staple food, in Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh, rice is hardly consumed by the growers. Rice became a commercial cash crop in the newfound granary giving birth to the recurrent stubble burning menace.
• While the country succeeded in achieving the desired objective, there were unintended consequences of large proportions that have persisted over time. Paddy cultivation is water-intensive and requires flooding for irrigation. The fertile plains of areas with rayati settlement system received high investment and heavy subsidies for developing irrigation infrastructure coupled with heavy exploitation of groundwater. Incentivized progressive farmers in these areas started producing paddy with assured market intervention by the State unmindful of their non-rice-consuming habits. Paddy became a commercial crop in Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh, and the direct beneficiaries were the big farmers.
• High-yielding paddy developed by scientists and cultivated in these areas is mostly a dwarf variety, matched well for mechanized harvesting. With hardly any risk of cyclones and floods in the new-found granary for rice, productivity soared with more sunny days during Kharif season and controlled irrigation facilities. Mechanized harvesting left a higher stubble, which became a burden for farmers who had transformed their status from tillers to supervisors and did not like to bear the additional costs of clearing their fields for subsequent sowing during the Rabi season. The easy option was ‘stubble burning’, a polluting activity.
• Eastern, southern and central India do not suffer from the menace of stubble-burning even when paddy is grown in both Kharif and Rabi seasons. The reasons are not difficult to glean. Rice not being their commercial crop, farmers did not necessarily go for dwarf varieties and excessive farm mechanization. Tall variety paddy not only withstands excessive rains and longer submergence in floodwaters but also gives better overall returns. After harvesting, paddy straw is used for animal feed, besides being the main construction material for thatched houses and roof cover to cool pucca houses. Indeed the returns from by-products almost equal the price of rice, thereby compensating for the higher costs of paddy cultivation. Productivity of paddy crop being low and risks on account of heavy rains and floods being higher in the traditional paddy-growing coastal and low-lying plains, farmers would stop growing this crop in case of earnings from by-products were not there.
• Stubble-burning, in a nutshell, is an unintended consequence of the technology developed for the Green Revolution. The solution, thus, lies in the development of suitable varieties of seeds and harvesting technologies. Crop diversification and production practices are other aspects that require greater attention. At the same time, research scientists and industry leaders need to work harder to develop suitable seed varieties and inexpensive tools for farmers to prevent them from stubble-burning before cheaper Chinese products start flooding our market to handle the concerns of arm-chair environmental activists and newsmakers from the electronic media. Unregulated and excessive use of water, which is offered almost free of cost to farmers, is affecting the soil health by causing salinity, etc. Indiscriminate exploitation of groundwater, heavy usage of chemical fertilizers, and pesticides are causing serious health hazards leading to more deaths than from the Corona pandemic besides polluting and depleting the underground water.
• Polluted ground/river water, as well as food crops including fruits and vegetables, pose much bigger dangers today than air pollution caused by stubble-burning. Administrators, researchers, and farmers need to open their eyes to the pollution building up under the ground and over it, which is the bigger silent killer. The exploitation of groundwater requires stringent regulations. Organic agriculture deserves to be encouraged by offering a higher support price for quality produce. The role of politicians is critically important– they need to understand that a healthy environment is important for a healthy popularity contest.

Looking ahead

• Post-Harvest Regulation and Incentivisation:There is a need to replicate the schemes like the MGNREGA for harvesting and composting of stubble burning, and regulate post-harvest management at ground level.
  • The government can also provide incentives to farmerswho reuse and recycle their stubble.
• Using Stubble as a Fodder: Wheat stubble can be used as a fodder for cattles,the Tudi, which is made from wheat stubble, is considered to be the best dry fodder for cattle because of its nutritional value.
• Technical Intervention:
  • Microbe Pusa:Several innovative measures have been developed to reduce stubble burning, The Indian Agricultural Research Institute developed a microbe Pusa, that hastens decomposition and converts stubble to compost within 25 days, improving soil quality as a result.
  • Happy Seeder:Instead of burning the stubble, a tractor-mounted machine called the Happy Seeder can be used that “cuts and lifts rice straw, sows wheat into the bare soil, and deposits the straw over the sown area as mulch.
• Recycling and Reusing Stubble: Stubble can be recycledto make products including paper and cardboard. Also, it can be used as a manure.
  • For example, in Palla village outside Delhi,the Nandi Foundation purchased 800 MT of paddy residue from farmers to turn it into manure.
  • Crop residue can also be used for various purposes like charcoal gasification,power generation, as industrial raw material for production of bio-ethanol.