Sources:

Stubble Burning – A threat to the environment?

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/up-in-the-air/article25099646.ece

Model Answer:

Stubble Burning:

• Stubble burning is the deliberate setting fire to the crop residue that remains after wheat, paddy and other grains have been harvested. The carbon (C) component in stubbles is lost by burning and that the process of burning stubbles even occasionally, seriously affects the organic carbon levels of the soil and adversely affects the environment.

Effect on Environment:

• Around 80 per cent of the C in standing stubble will return to the atmosphere as CO₂. Losses of carbon as CO₂to the atmosphere through burning are often only slightly greater than through natural decomposition, but they are of course immediate and harmful.
• Burning straw leads to increase in particulate matter (PM) in the air. The burning causes release of acids like sulfates, nitrates, metals in the air and could cause severe health problems.
• According to the experts, burning of straw burns out 1 lakh tonnes of nitrogen, 0.5 lakh tonnes of phosphorus and 2.5 lakh tonnes of potash in the soil over the 29-30 lakh hectares in which paddy is grown annually.
• Stubble burning leads to loss of nutrients, loss of carbon, impact on soil microbes and fauna, reduction in soil structure (soil aggregate stability), increase in erosion (wind and water) and can increase acidity over time.

Measures to persuade farmers:

• In response to alarming air pollution level in the National Capital Region, the Delhi High Court recently had taken the ‘suo motu’ action to ban burning of crop residue.
• The court issued a direction to the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi to implement notifications and directions issued under the Air Pollution Act to ban burning of crop residues.
• Recognizing the need for companies and industries to comply with their corporate social responsibility towards curbing air pollution, the Court directed to some corporate entities to collect crop residue from fields of farmers by providing them money as consideration for lifting the agricultural residue.
• Setting up of more biomass plants as they will buy the stubble to be used to feed into the plants in order to rot and decay for power generation. This will also generate income to the farmers for which they will be paid.
• The farmers should be persuaded to allow their animals to feed on the stubble or by conversion of stubble into goat fodder. Converting stubble into animal fodder will lead to increase into milk and meat which will add more value that using it as fuel.
• The plants of mushroom grow on the heaps of stubble. The farmers should also be persuaded of how the stubble can be used for making compost and ploughed back and can also be used to grow mushroom by making its heap can save from being disposed in a manner which damages the soil and environment.
• Zero-till farming is another alternative which sows wheat seeds without removing the stubble. Tractor-mounted happy seeders, rotavators, and straw-reapers simultaneously cuts rice stubble and sows wheat seeds, depositing the cut stubble on top as mulch.

Conclusion:

• The farmers should be encouraged to adopt conservation farming systems. Alternative options to manage stubble residues, particularly in high rainfall areas, are continuing to evolve.
• An all-round aggressive approach is needed on behalf of the government, scientists and farmers in the form of adoption of ‘straw management technologies’.