A helping hand to fight stubble burning
COLLECTIVE EFFORT Volunteers are motivating farmers to adopt crop residual management techniques and will help them transport stubble to biomass plants and cow sheds once harvest starts
BATHINDA: Central and state governments, agricultural universities, farm machine manufacturers and non-government organisations (NGOS) are gearing to educate Punjab’s farmers about the risks posed by stubble burning and to equip them with alternatives after the paddy harvest in October and November
Groups such as the Association of Active NGOS (AAN) in Bathinda district have the domain experience because they played a role in managing stubble, the stalks left over after the harvest, without burning it last year.
Burning of the residue, which farmers take recourse to as a quick and cheap method of disposing stubble before they plant the winter wheat crop, is one of the primary reasons for the annual deterioration of air quality in northern India.
AAN coordinator Sandeep Aggarwal says that for more than 20 days in October and November last year, activists worked in villages collecting the stubble that was transported in tractortrailers to be kept at a place from where it was taken to biomass power plants and cow sheds .
“NGO workers in teams of 20-25 managed the stubble from more than 4,000 acres of paddy fields in the villages of Behman Dewana, Gobindpura, Balluana, Behman Dewana, Bir Talab, Bir Behman and Har Rangpura,” he said.
They found that farmers wanted to get rid of the paddy stubble in an environment-friendly way, too, but cannot afford to pay for the machines. “When we deployed our volunteers, they readily joined us. They provided their tractors and equipment,” he said.
Bathinda tehsildar Sukhbir Singh Progressive farmers show the way Brar said the administration played the role of a coordinator in the campaign.
HOLISTIC APPROACH
NGO Kheti Virasat Mission (KVM) has been running a campaign against crop residue burning for eight years.
“The scale at which commodity of great value is being converted to fumes has far-reaching implications. It engulfs public health and causes economic losses,” says Umendra Dutt, the executive director of KVM.
Besides organising a public dialogue across Punjab to motivate farmers against stubble burning, KVM runs vans in villages that distribute printed material to farmers to generate awareness.
“Straw burning should be seen in a context that is an intersection of the broader agricultural paradigm, the cropping systems specific to Punjab and forms of technologies adapted. The problem is ingrained in the system, hence it calls for a systemic approach and not quick fixes,” he said.
Among the solutions suggested are mulching, composting, incorporation of stubble into soil, using it as cattle feed, to generate biogas/bio CNG, and baling. “We evolve the solution with the involvement of farmers,” added Amar Singh Azad, the research director at KVM.
The Young Inventive Farmers’ Group set up a farm tool bank in Qadian block of Gurdaspur for Rs 25 lakh with assistance from the government last year. The group bought Happy Seeders and rotavators to rent out to farmers. Group president Avtar Singh Sandhu said the group succeeded in getting farmers to give up stubble burning after this year’s wheat crop was harvested in 500 acres at Bhambari in Qadian, Sallopur in Kahnuwan and Sahari in Dhariwal block.
BIOMASS PLANTS OFFER HOPE
The three private biomass plants in Muktsar and Fazilka districts offer an environment-friendly alternative to the stubble burning challenge. There are two such plants in Muktsar, the Malwa Biomass Plant at Gulabewala and the Universal Biomass Plant at Channu village. The third is at Gadda Dob village of Fazilka district.
Balers are used to collect paddy stub- ble from the fields. The machine takes an hour to make bales out of straw in a oneacre paddy field. On an average, one acre produces 12-15 quintals of bales, which are then sold to biomass plants for Rs120 to Rs 130 a quintal.
Dinesh Bhardwaj, assistant manager at the Gulabewala plant, said: “In the last season, we bought about 120,000 tonnes of stubble, which was used to generate electricity after processing. We sell the electricity to the power department.”
Narinder Singh Bhullar, general manager of the biomass plant at Channu, said: “Farmers can earn well by selling the bales. The problem of pollution will also be tackled.” We started working with the farmers four months ago. I feel there is going to be a positive change this time and we will see a steep fall in paddy stubble burning. Machines and technology are rolling in with the intervention of the state and central government agencies. NGOS are working day and night to bring a positive change. Farmers have understood the ill-effects of stubble burning and the benefits of not burning the residue.
Due to the delay in paddy transplantation from June 15 to 20 this time, farmers are under pressure because they will have a shorter window to prepare their fields to sow wheat. Farmers cite this short period as the reason for burning paddy stubble. They find it the easiest and fastest way to dispose of the straw. It may take more time than expected for machinery and technology for managing stubble to reach the farmers.