Stubble burning: Will extended rains this year cut pollution or worsen it?

Punjab produces about 20 million tonnes of stubble annually, while Haryana produces about 8 million tonnes of paddy stubble

Paddy stubble burning is down, a trend that has sharpened on the back of three years of decline. This year, the first 25 days of the stubble-burning season, which runs from September 15 to November 30, have seen a 65 per cent drop, with Punjab and Haryana — the two states that lead in the polluting practice — seeing a dramatic fall of 64 per cent and 96 per cent, respectively.

 

Madhya Pradesh, which has over the past few years emerged as a new hotspot of paddy stubble burning, has also seen a drop of almost 45 per cent in the same period.

 

Experts put down the consistent decline to a mix of policies: Subsidies, incentives, and punitive measures. However, they warn, the recent rains over northern states could lead to some of the pollution gains unravelling.

 

Chokers: The facts

 

A 2023 study by Bhopal-based Indian Institute of Science Education and Research found that there had been a 75 per cent increase in harmful greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural residue burning across India in the decade from 2011 through 2020.

 

The study also found that most emissions occurred during the end of the kharif season, followed by rabi, caused by the burning of rice and wheat residues. Rice, wheat, and maize accounted for 97 per cent of India’s agricultural burning emissions, with paddy being the largest contributor at 55 per cent.

 

Burning one tonne of paddy straw, according to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a public policy think-tank, releases 3 kilograms of particulate matter, 60 kg of carbon monoxide, 1.46 tonnes of carbon dioxide, 199 kg of ash, and 2 kg of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere.

 

Not only that, scientists at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) estimate that each tonne of stubble burnt leads to a loss of at least 12-13 kg of phosphorus, 35 kg of potassium, and 20 kg of nitrogen in the soil.

 

According to some studies, stubble burning accounts for 15-30 per cent of Delhi’s PM (particulate matter) 2.5 pollution during the peak burning period. CEEW says Delhi’s average annual PM 2.5 count is around 100 ug/m3 (micrograms per cubic metres), going up to more than 200 ug/m3 in the winter months.

 

Punjab produces about 20 million tonnes of paddy stubble annually, and Haryana 7-8 million tonnes (figures for Madhya Pradesh were not readily available). Smoke from stubble burning gets trapped in the national capital regions because of booming urban construction and wind patterns.

 

Some of the news about stubble burning could be a matter of perception. Although the decrease in stubble burning has been much higher in Punjab and Haryana than in Madhya Pradesh (MP), the latter does not hit the national headlines because it is that much further away from the national capital, analysts said.

 

Experts put down the steep decline in stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana in the last two years to a combination of ‘in-situ’ and ‘off-situ’ measures.

 

In crop residue management, or CRM, in-situ measures are those where the stubble is treated in the paddy field through mulching, mixing it in the soil, or using chemical solutions to decompose the residue. Ex-situ measures are those where the stubble is taken outside the farm to processing centres where it is turned into pellets for use as feedstock or fuel for power plants. 

 

Monsoon havoc

 

The extended monsoon rains over much of northern India, including Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, means that harvesting of paddy has been delayed as farmers have been waiting for the weather to clear before deploying their combine harvesters, which separate the grain from the stalk.

 

This also means that the window between paddy harvest and wheat sowing might get narrower than normal, which, in turn, could tempt farmers to opt for burning of paddy stubble rather than applying other non-polluting means, such as in-situ and ex-situ measures, that can take longer. Paddy harvesting usually starts in October.

 

“We have to anyhow start wheat sowing from the first week of November to get the optimum yield and if, by then, most of the paddy is not harvested, farmers will have little option but to burn the leftover stubble,” a farmer from Punjab said.

 

“If it rains continuously for two days or more, harvesting gets delayed by a minimum 5-7 days as combine harvesters can’t run on wet soil. Therefore, everything will depend on the weather,” he explained.

 

Punjab has seen 651 per cent excess rain from October 1 to October 10 this year — this is on the back of more than 30 per cent excess rains in the June to September monsoon months.

 

Not only that, a report by ICAR says that as of October 9, dense clouds over Punjab, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan and MP have also made it difficult for satellites to detect incidence of paddy burning.

 

But there could be a flip side to this problem. “If the soils remain wet for long, farmers won’t have any option but to harvest paddy fields manually, which leads to less production of stubble as the plant can be harvested right from the bottom,” a senior scientist at ICAR said.

 

Machines in the mix

 

Last month, the Punjab government said that it had sanctioned 15,000 fresh CRM machines — including super seeders, happy seeders, mulchers and rotavators — this year. Paddy growers had already procured 12,500 of these machines.

 

The state government has also prepared a ₹500 crore action plan for the effective management of paddy straw to promote sustainable agricultural practices.

 

“Punjab and Haryana possess over 200,000 CRM machines, sufficient to cover all the paddy farms,” said Kurinji Kemanth, programme lead at CEEW. “This year, the government’s focus should be on strengthening custom hiring centres (CHCs), which can enhance farmers’ access to crucial machines like super seeders at just 10-33 per cent of the purchase cost.” He added that considering such centres already own nearly 30-40 per cent of CRM machines in these states, offering incentives for the best-performing CHCs,

 

targeted operational subsidies, and developing machine management plans can make them reliable service providers for farmers.

 

However, a CEEW survey said that in Punjab, only 33 per cent farmers use ex-situ CRM machines and that 20 per cent farmers believed the myth that wheat yields drop and the crop becomes more prone to pest attack if CRM machines are used to harvest paddy.

 

Vikram Ahuja, a farmer and an agri-entrepreneur who has worked with farmers for crop residue management for over two decades in Punjab, said that farmers should be given an annual ‘no-burning bonus', supported by direct benefit transfers for crop residue management. Alongside, government subsidies for farmers to procure CRM machines should be ended.

 

The measures will not only support farmers financially but also reduce the inflated margins — subsidies often lead to higher prices — for sellers of happy seeders, balers and roto seeders.

 

He said government subsidies for use of happy seeders or other such farm equipment have not resolved the problem. Ahuja’s prescription finds support among farmers groups in Punjab, who also want financial incentives to stop burning stubble, rather than cheaper machines.

 

“It is unfortunate that stubble management efforts are often restricted to a subsidy drive,” Ahuja said. “The government has provided subsidies to farmers for buying these equipment, but their prices have been unnecessarily inflated in the market, and farmers have ended up blocking their money in underutilised farm equipment.”

 

Recently, the Supreme Court came down heavily on stubble burning, saying farmers should be jailed if they fail to comply with directives, an observation that was criticised by many as unduly harsh.

 

Underscoring the need for the right policy mix, agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told a high-level meeting on crop residue management in the national capital recently that financial incentives, proper monitoring, and adequate subsidies for residue management machines are among the key measures needed to check stubble burning. The meeting was attended by the agriculture ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, and Union environment minister Bhupendra Yadav, among others.

 

Clearly, the last three years have shown that the mix of incentives, punitive measures, and subsidies is working as far as tackling stubble burning is concerned — that’s a rare bit of good news in a nation that finds itself choking from pollution every year.