Delhi holds breath as burning farms herald pollution season

ISHARGARH, India, Oct 21, (AFP): Harpal Singh struck a match and watched his fields burn, the acrid smoke drifting toward New Delhi where a lethal smog cocktail is once again intensifying over the world’s most polluted megacity.

Every November, air pollution in northern India reaches levels unimaginable in most parts of the world, forcing schools shut and filling hospital wards with wheezing patients.

As winter descends, cooler air traps car fumes, factory emissions and construction dust close to the ground, fomenting a toxic brew of harmful pollutants that regularly exceed 30 times the World Health Organization safe limit.

The scourge is compounded as farmers like Singh – rushing to ready their fields for next season’s wheat crop – use fire to quickly and cheaply clear their land.

He knows slash-and-burn farming is illegal and that doing so, year after year, helps sicken millions in the Indian capital and beyond.

But local authorities appear powerless to stop it and – looming health crisis or not in Delhi – the narrow window to plant for the winter harvest is closing.

“We have no other choice but to burn the straw,” Singh told AFP in Ishargarh, a village in Haryana state, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) northwest of Delhi.

“We know the smoke pollutes the air. But it is the cheapest and easiest way to get rid of the (crop) residue,” the 65-year-old farmer told AFP, as burning straw crackled and popped behind him.

This smoke is already reaching Delhi, bringing a familiar sepia haze and a bad omen for officials wanting to avoid a third straight year of record-setting smog.

Deterrents, such as fines of up to $200 for farmers flouting the law, appear to have limited effect.

Satellite imagery shows countless spot fires already burning in Haryana and Punjab, two breadbasket states bordering Delhi.

S. Narayanan, from Haryana’s State Pollution Control Board, said 300,000 rupees ($4100) in fines had been issued and fires were down 40 percent in some areas.

“But our intention is not only to take punitive action, but to educate the farmers,” he told AFP.