Reducing air pollution: Stubble burning needs economic solutions

Fortunately, there is no dearth of potential gainful uses of crop residues

With the paddy-harvesting season almost at hand, none of the northern rice-growing states seems to have a workable strategy in place to prevent farmers from burning crop residues, which aggravates air pollution in the National Capital Region in October-November every year. The massive amount of smoke and toxic gases that the crop fires exude causes health problems, ranging from eye and breathing troubles to more serious illnesses. The offer of the Delhi and Punjab governments to spray the microbial stubble decomposer, developed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, on the harvested paddy fields has been rejected by the farmers as