MITIGATING AIR POLLUTION THROUGH AGRICULTURAL REFORM: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STUBBLE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES FROM CHINA, THAILAND, AND THEIR POTENTIAL APPLICATION IN INDIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53555/eijas.v10i1.180Keywords:
Central India, agricultural waste, crop residue, field residue, crop residue burningAbstract
India is the second largest Agro based economy that generates a large amount of agricultural waste, including crop residues. In the absence of proper sustainable management practises about 92 metric tons of crop waste is burnt almost every year in India, leading to excessive particulate matter emissions and air pollution. Burning of the residue has become a major environmental problem, caused global warming as well as contributed to health issues. The government of India has attempted to curtail this problem through numerous measures and decided to promote sustainable management methods such as converting crop residue to energy.
However, a rapidly growing demand for food translates into a constant ramping up of yield production, which increasingly forces farmers to burn fields after harvest. What motivated me to take on this topic was the increased the pollution in Delhi. Burning paddy stubble has become a big issue for air pollution in Delhi and surrounding areas.
Every year during October and November, farmers in Punjab and Haryana are blamed for polluting the Delhi air by burning stubble. The state governments have imposed a penalty of Rs 2,500 per acre to dissuade farmers from burning stubble, but this has not deterred the farmers in both Punjab and Haryana.
Let us look into why these farmers opt to burn the stubble instead of managing it scientifically. They only have a window of about a month between harvesting rice and planting wheat, earlier, farmers used to manually cut the rice, with this method, the rice stalk would be cut close to the ground, but now, they use a machine called the combined harvester. It leaves a foot-and-a-half-long paddy stalks in field, which the farmers burn, furthermore, we have talked about what is stubble farming, what are its effects and what are some cost-efficient methods that are undertaken in Thailand and china. Methods used in Thailand include free gazing ducks in paddy field and rice straw compacting, and China includes subsidies and straw return. Thailand has used methods from a more ecocentric point of view while China has used opted for methods from a more technocentric point of view.
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