Douse the farm fire

A market for paddy biomass is the only sustainable solution

The crop residue burning season is barely a month away but there is hardly any indication that the northern region, including the National Capital Region of Delhi (NCR), would not get choked in the beginning of the ensuing winter with smoke emanating from flaming farm fields. The situation may, in fact, be worse this time than last year, when the farm fires played havoc. Neither the threat of punitive action nor the offer of fiscal sops for safe management of the leftover crop biomass had deterred the farmers from torching their fields. Since Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (UP) are now heading for polls and the farmers’ agitation is continuing unabated, stringent measures to curb this recurring menace are unlikely. In fact, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has already instructed officials not to harass the farmers for alighting the residual biomass. The Union government, too, has not come up with any concrete proposal or strategy to combat this practice, which vitiates the atmosphere and poses health hazards, ranging from minor eye and throat afflictions to serious ailments.

Stubble burning is essentially the result of the need to clear the land quickly enough for timely planting of the next wheat crop. The alternative methods, though available aplenty, involve costs, which the farmers are unwilling to incur despite hefty government subsidies. The bids in the past to decompose the leftover crop biomass in situ or off situ have not made much headway chiefly because it takes time to do so. The use of the stubble decomposer produced by the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute has also failed to attract farmers’ fancy, despite its usefulness, because of the time factor. It takes at least 20 days to fully decompose the matter. Unlike wheat straw, which has a lucrative market as an animal feed, paddy straw is unfit for feeding the cattle because of its high cellulose content. It is, therefore, virtually a waste material for farmers, unworthy of investment in proper management.

The need, therefore, is to create a market for the paddy biomass by converting it into an economic good to generate additional income for the farmers. This has been tried out with a fair amount of success, albeit on a limited scale. NTPC has begun buying crop biomass from the farmers for use as fuel in its plants. Some start-ups have also come up to procure the biomass from the farmers for producing manure and biofuel. In another noteworthy development, the Haryana government has announced plans to offer ~1,000 an acre to farmers who, instead of burning the residue, give it to the industrial units for various uses. The Punjab government has suggested a premium of ~100 a quintal on the minimum support price of paddy for those farmers who do not torch their fields. Such economic solutions, which are likely to go down well with the farmers, merit consideration. But the best solution, without doubt, would be to wean the farmers of northern states away from paddy cultivation by incentivising the growing of alternative shorter-duration crops that would vacate the land in time for wheat sowing. This trend has already begun in some states and needs to be encouraged to stave off the ill-effects of the crop fires on the environment and human health.