Sops for machinery to tackle stubble burning will fuel crisis: Farm expert

Penalising farmers who play a significant role in ensuring India's food security is not the way forward

A few days before Delhi found itself enveloped in a toxic smog that prompted the Indian Medical Association to describe the situation as a  “public health emergency," farmers in Punjab and Haryana had burned massive amounts of rice stubble to clear their fields for the next crop. As the air quality dropped to dangerous levels, the Delhi High Court referred to stubble burning as the "main villain" behind the severe pollution in and around Delhi. DEVINDER SHARMA, an expert on Indian agriculture, speaks to Nikita Puri about the crisis that stubble burning represents. Edited excerpts:

What alternatives do farmers have to avoid stubble burning?

Several studies have shown that soil loses a significant amount of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and sulphur from crop residue burning. Stubble burning shoots up the carbon dioxide levels in the air by 70 per cent. The concentration of carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide rises 7 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively, triggering respiratory and heart problems.

Many progressive farmers in Punjab and Haryana have shown how the paddy straw can be managed without harming the environment. Most farmers follow agro-ecological methods of cultivation or somehow are out of the intensive cropping pattern of wheat and rice.

The first  alternative is the application of crop residues for mulching, which helps in improving soil health and retaining soil moisture. The huge biomass that is produced, an estimated 33.9 million tonnes of paddy straw in the northwestern region alone, can also be used for composting, incorporating it back into soil, as cattle feed, and for industrial use, including power generation.

How does the crop cycle push farmers to adopt stubble burning to clean up their fields?

Farmers know the damaging health impacts their own families have to  undergo when they resort to crop burning. But the fact that they still find crop burning to be the easiest and  cheapest way to clean up the fields is because of the short window (15-20 days) that is available to begin the sowing of the next wheat crop after they have harvested paddy.

 To achieve higher production, farmers have over the years moved from short duration paddy varieties like PR 126 and PR 1506. These varieties are harvested in the last week of September or the first week of November, thereby leaving enough time for the farmers to sow the next crop. But rice millers showed little interest in milling these short duration varieties, complaining that it resulted in breaking of grains. Instead of upgrading the milling technology, the onus was conveniently shifted to farmers. Government must make it obligatory for rice millers to improve the milling technology.

Why has crop burning increased?

The problem of crop burning has grown in direct proportion to the expansion of harvesting operations using combine harvesters. As long as paddy harvesting was done manually, the crop residues were not put to fire. These machines chop the grain spike, and leave about 9 inches of the stem standing. Since the animals don’t feed on paddy straw as it contains traces of silica, removing these standing stubbles from the fields becomes problematic. Ploughing it back into the soil is also not helpful as it takes about three months to decompose.

An improved technology already exists that can be easily incorporated by combine harvesters. (A leading manufacturer of combine harvesters – Canada’s John Deere in partnership with the US-based Hillco Technologies — has developed a machine for harvesting corn wherein the corn stems are baled in one simple step.)

If only the National Green Tribunal had tried to make it compulsory for the combine harvesters to bring in the new technology, crop burning would have been easily relegated to the past.

Would subsiding machinery, or providing additional labour, help?

An easy way out is to apply the labour force available under MNREGA to help tide over the paddy straw management operations. Take Punjab for instance: there are 12.5 lakh MNREGA card holders. The state has not been able to use over Rs 4,000 crore of the funds available under MNREGA. By seeking approval for including paddy straw management under MNREGA activities, Punjab could have not only created jobs for the idle labour force but also mitigated the environmental fallout from residue burning. 

Instead, the solution being proposed is to use a set of six machines to tide over the crisis. A strong lobby is pushing for enhancing the subsidy on happy seeders, which are basically for no-tilling operations, along with straw reaper,  chopper, rotavator etc. Subsidising machinery only adds to the burden of the farmers.

Is it justified to penalise farmers for stubble burning?

Penalising farmers who play a significant role in ensuring India’s food security is certainly not the way forward.

How do we move forward?

Given the severity of the prevailing agrarian crisis, it is futile to expect farmers to invest more  on crop cultivation practice. I agree with Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh when he says the Centre should provide Rs 2,000 crore for paddy straw management. News reports say the centre has been unable to find money. This does not cut much ice.