Air pollution: Reactive, band-aid solutions will not solve the problem

Crop stubble burning isn’t new. We must explore other practical solutions to end the polluting practice

The Supreme Court petition that asked to ban firecrackers also pleads to control pollution created from other sources, such as burning of crop stubble, garbage and vehicular emissions. Crop residue burning in farms around India’s capital directly affects high population density urban centres like Delhi and NCR. Latest satellite images show that these fires have reduced in recent days. But they’re still contributing to almost 5% of the total pollution. Farmers who burn crop residue in northern India do so knowingly and because they don’t have an alternate economical and viable option. As the first inhalers of that choking smoke, much before it gets into any city dwellers’ lungs, they’re also early sufferers. But they continue to burn because this is the fastest way they have to turnaround their capital, which is their acreage. This doesn’t mean that they are justified in doing this at all. This, and anything that jeopardises human health to such a degree, is wrong, and must stop. It is our elected government’s job to ensure that enforcement of such a mandate is being followed especially at a time when we are going through a national health emergency caused by pollution.

But reactive, band-aid solutions and challans aren’t going to help anyone. We need a comprehensive policy by a centralised, empowered and accountable authority tasked with quantifiable, timebound goals. And here is where every political party has let us — urban residents as well as farmers — down. As always, this is about money. But it is also about intention. Crop stubble burning isn’t new. It is a recurring source which tips over an already high pollution baseload that north India suffers from due to geographical, meteorological and man-made factors.

What could the government have done, and can still do? One: The Agriculture ministry can direct scientists and researchers from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the National Soil Research Institute, etc to create implementable solutions. Soil researchers can educate farmers on how burning damages the soil by depleting it of valuable nutrients, which, in turn, requires higher external application of fertilisers. Higher fertiliser use not just means a higher fertiliser subsidy outgo by the gov-

OUR SCIENTISTS COULD BE TASKED TO FIND SOLUTIONS THAT REUSE FARM WASTE TO MONETISE IT. THE GOVERNMENT COULD DIRECTLY PAY FARMERS TO DEPOSIT CROP WASTE AT COLLECTION CENTRES OR LINK IT TO THEIR MINIMUM SUPPORT PRICE PAYMENTS

ernment but also higher input costs for farmers. Simultaneously, scientists can identify and encourage the use of those seed varieties with softer stalks that can be used as fodder. Farmers from Punjab who I met confirmed that the high silica in the paddy stalks of the varieties they grow makes them inedible as animal fodder. The government could easily get farmers to switch back to growing low-water use, nutrition-dense coarse grains such as pearl millet, finger millet, sorghum, barley, rye and maize by offering higher support price subsidies. These higher iron-content grains are perfect for a country where large swathes of the population are anaemic. Now that the government’s biofuels policy allows inclusion of ethanol made from maize and sorghum, there is even less reason to further deplete north India’s water table by growing a high water-use paddy crop in a water-scarce area. These grains can be planted later, allowing farmers a longer turnaround window to clear their fields. As well, the ethanol produced from them can help farmers augment their income, besides creating new employment opportunities and saving on oil imports.

Two: Make waste valuable. Farmers won’t burn it. Our scientists could be tasked to find solutions that reuse farm waste to monetise it. The government could directly pay farmers to deposit crop waste at collection centres or link it to their minimum support price payments. Simultaneously, they could subsidise entrepreneurs who create solutions like green refrigeration systems powered by farm waste or ecological crockery (which also reduces plastic use.) Three: The ministry of rural development can deploy free MGNREGS labour to farmers during harvest for acreage needing a quick turnaround, a much more productive use of our taxpaying rupee.

Punjab farmers seem happy with the Happy Seeder, a machine that simultaneously performs the dual job of cutting crop stubble and sowing seeds. But before propagating — and subsidising — this as the only solution, it is important to check whether these diesel-run machines won’t just end up swapping one source of pollution with another, not to mention will lead to increase in costs with further rise in oil prices. In a labour-rich country like ours, deploying capital-intensive techniques like Happy Seeders is counter-intuitive.

But how do Uttar Pradesh farmers growing similar crops burn so much less? According to Chowdhury Pushpendra Singh, a Bulandshahar farmer, this is because farmers employ more traditional techniques that utilise most of the crop waste as fodder, animal bedding and compost. “Crop stubble from basmati seed varieties 1121 and 1509 doesn’t have very tough/ high silica stalks,” he explains. Instead of working on solutions like these, the government hasn’t even finalised its much touted National Clean Air plan. However flawed, it was a start. Now, it looks like another season — and election — must pass before beleaguered, vulnerable citizens can hope for respite.