The burning fields of Punjab
There is no instant fix for Delhi’s haze. The situation calls for smart decision-making and disciplined implementation
What is the solution to this haze that has embraced Delhi so horribly? It has to do with the straw economy in Punjab and some parts of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, as well as West Panjab in Pakistan. The problem rests on three points. One, more rice straw is being generated than before. Two, straw is becoming more difficult to collect. And three, straw is becoming less useful and farmers have little time to remove it from their fields. Therefore, they prefer to burn the straw. In the process, they harm their land – roasting beneficial worms, microorganisms and other life forms – and also the environment and health of people in their villages and cities faraway.
Some inept policymakers have banned straw burning! But, it would be easier to eliminate prostitution than to eliminate straw burning through such foolishness. They obviously did not understand that techno-economic conditions give farmers no other option.
Since the mid-1960s the area under kharif rice has risen from 0.3 to 3 million hectares, and productivity has grown from a tonne per hectare to about six tonnes per hectare. Apart from availability of high yielding variety (HYV) seeds, the skewed support prices and procurement practices, the by cheap or free electricity, among other distortions, have incentivised farmers to grow a crop that agro-conditions are not inherently suitable for. For short-term gains they, perhaps unknowingly, harm their own land, air and the sub-surface water.
One way of reducing Delhi’s haze is to correct the distortions introduced over time by the central and state governments. Lower procurement and price distortions will naturally lead farmers to shift to cultivating other crops in place of paddy. This will require some farmers to draw less water, and with the reduced burning, the sustainability parameters of Punjab’s fertile lands will improve. Of course, it will also reduce the haze over Delhi. However, some farmers will continue to produce paddy as they have done from times immemorial.
Next, consider straw collection. Changing technology has changed agriculture practices. Where people would manually harvest paddy and take the crop to a common point for threshing, harvester-thresher combines now throw out straw all over the field. While it was easier to bale the straw collected at a single point traditionally, now it needs to be gathered from all over the field. Labour is also now relatively expensive for this to be done manually. Baling machines do exist but they require significant capital, diesel and other operational costs. Straw, being bulky, also has significant transport and storage costs. So not only is there more straw, it is also expensive to collect and use.
The stubble cannot be removed as easily from the ground as straw, and though it is only about 20 per cent of what is left over, it is significant nevertheless. A zero-till machine costs about ~1.5 lakh and enables the farmer to retain the stubble while he plants the next crop (rabi — typically wheat). This reduces the seed, fertiliser, water and even tilling costs for the farmer. A profitable service of renting out the use of zero-till machines is feasible and it will eliminate the stubble-burning problem, although it may take some time to spread.
But straw is another matter. Traditionally, straw was used as cattle-feed, roofing, mixed with dung for plastering, bedding for cattle, etc. When ploughed back into the soil it retains moisture and has some other advantages as well. However, it is low in proteins and is not the best cattle-feed. Thatched roofs and dung plastered walls are no longer in fashion, and many farmers don’t keep cattle anymore in these days of “modern” agriculture. Moreover, the need to quickly ready the land in this age of two to three crops annually does not allow the farmer to leave straw on the land long enough before he can plough it back into the soil. In sum, rural Punjab does not need straw anymore, definitely not in the quantum in which it is being generated.
Fortunately, straw can be used for power, paper, and fibre-board. Unfortunately in each of these cases there is a better substitute available, and so straw use is not significant enough in India. Paper made out of ricestraw is typically used for low-strength papers such as napkins. Rice-straw has high silica and ash content, which has its own complications in power production. Straw-board or fibre-board can be used in construction, but rice-straw has a wax and silica covering which makes it more difficult to use than, say wood chips. For each of these uses there are appropriate solutions that help circumvent the problem, but there is a certain cost associated with each. And therefore, current technoeconomic conditions don’t allow widespread use of straw commensurate with how much is produced.
So what can the central or state governments do? Will Delhi have to continue suffering? Cleary there is no single solution. The governments need to promote less-skewed incentives on both input and output sides of the agriculture sector, but other options also need to be pursued.
The most immediate gain can be made by making rice-straw the preferred input for biomass power producers, fibre-board makers, paper mills and, of course, for cattle-feed. If such widespread demand is created for rice-straw in the industrial sector, it would incentivise its collection, baling and transportation to the place of use.
However, simply making such units more profitable – either through investment subsidies or price incentives – is likely to have a marginal impact. Since rice-straw has many superior substitutes, merely improving the revenue or investment side incentives may encourage such units to substitute away from rice-straw. For instance, higher price for biomass power plants could encourage use of the more cost-efficient bagasse. Moreover, incentives that are tied to a specific raw material, such as higher price per unit provided to power plant if it uses rice-straw, don’t work well in India since government departments are poorly equipped to monitor and enforce honestly.
The objective before the government, therefore, is to make straw and its use cheaper than other inputs with no motoring requirement. In the long run this is best achieved by developing appropriate technologies, and greater research and development (R&D) in this space would be a great initiative.
But in the short run this would require incentives that enable units to substitute towards rice-straw use. That is subsidies and tax incentives to those inputs that make rice-straw use more feasible in industry. This includes straw balers and zero-till machines, cattle-feed protein and micro-nutrient additives used with rice-straw, power plant equipment that addresses the high ash and silica problem, chemicals and machinery that address the high wax and silica content of straw for fibre-board, and chemicals and machines that enable rice straw to be converted to paper. The cheaper these complementary inputs become, the more straw is likely to be used.
There is no instantaneous fix to the problem, but it can be done, provided disciplined implementation follows smart decision-making.