Conservation Agriculture In Punjab Can Reduce Pollution In Delhi

There is a neat alternative to the burning of paddy straw in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, which is exacerbating Delhi’s air pollution, already burdened by vehicle emissions and construction dust. It is called conservation agriculture. Sadly, the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), which has been demonstrating it at its station in Ludhiana for the past four years has done little to advertise it. Paytm’s Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma has pledged Rs 10 crore to startups that can sustainably scrub clean the air of Indian cities. Perhaps, he should devote a slice of it to amplify BISA’s experience.

Since the third week of October, combines have been harvesting paddy on 400 acres at BISA’s 500 acre campus in Ludhiana. Simultaneously, devices hitched to high-horsepower tractors have been cutting 4-5 centimetre deep slits in straw-covered fields and sowing wheat with fertiliser in them. Conventional combines pile up straw in rows. This has to be rolled into bales and sent to power plants to fire the boilers. Farmers do not like that expense. Lighting up straw is an inexpensive solution, except that it hurts human and animal health.

Burning is prohibited by law. But the Akali Dal government is unsure of regaining voter confidence in the coming elections. So it is indulging farmers, like it did last year, when devastation of cotton by white flies had angered them. Punjab produces 22 million tonnes of straw. Of this, it can be assumed that 15 million goes up in smoke and soot. The evidence is visible as one travels through Punjab. So is the government’s inaction.

A shredder-cum-spreader attached to the ejection vent of combines helps spread straw evenly in fields. The attachment costs about Rs 50,000. There are about 12,000 combines in Punjab. Retro-fitting them should cost about Rs 60 crore. Combines with second-hand engines may not have the power to drive the spreaders. But demand should bring powerful combines into the market.

Shifting to conventional agriculture will require a mindset change among farmers who have been used to ploughing the fields. Tilling is anathema to conservation agriculture. It results in loss of moisture, the destruction of capillaries formed by the roots of previous crops, and the transfer of weed seeds to the surface, where they can germinate easily.

Leaving straw on the field surface helps retain moisture and suppress weeds. Over time the straw degrades and enriches the soil. According to a Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) handbook, only 12 percent of the state’s soil has high organic carbon content.

By sowing wheat in straw-covered fields, farmers save time. This is crucial because there are just three weeks for sowing wheat after paddy is harvested. Wheat sown after that will likely face grain-shrivelling terminal heat in March. A variety of early maturing rice has knocked out a longer-duration type from the No 1 position this year. It provides more time for sowing operations.

Sowing wheat in rice stubble also saves about Rs 3,000 an acre that conventional farmers spend on ploughing and plane-ing.

The seeding device was developed by a PAU team in the last decade with Australian funding. It has gone through five iterations. The latest version can operate earlier in the day, when morning dew makes Punjab’s field difficult to work upon. HS Sidhu, BISA’s Ludhiana station in-charge, who is on deputation from PAU, headed that team. It is called the Happy Seeder. When asked whether it would have been called differently if his son were named, say, Bubbles or Honey, Sidhu said the machine was christened for the relief it gave from smoke-induced tears.

A Happy Seeder costs about Rs 2.5 lakh. It would require Rs 900 crore to provide the machines to sow wheat in all of Punjab’s common rice-growing areas. (Basmati is hand-harvested and cut low). Some farmers follow the rice-potato cycle. They can plough in the straw. This allows potatoes to grow bigger and gives them a nice sheen.

Paddy straw can also be used to grow mushrooms, or as mulch in orchards to suppress weeds. Some of it fires power plants as well, though rice straw has lower calorific value than other crop waste and its high silica content reduces boiler efficiency. In waterlogged areas like Abohar, off the India-Pakistan border, the land can be drained to ferment and digest straw for gas.

But sowing wheat in straw covered fields seems to be the best option. Farmers in two villages which BISA has adopted are trying it out on 300 acres. One of them, Jagdev Singh Toor, the ex-sarpanch of Bagga Khurd village said his entire 25-acre land was Happy seeded for the third year in a row. Rashpal Singh of Bagga Kalan village said he had done the same on the seven acres he has under wheat cultivation. Harcharan Singh of Badiwal Dogra, said he had done direct-seeding of rice (no transplantation, to save water) on 10 acres in the previous season and would use the Happy Seeder for wheat this season. But Harjinder Singh of Noorpur Bet village was a half convert. When asked why he was burning straw on a part of his holding, he said he was just following the rest of the village, as a matter of caution.

PAU said it has demonstrated no-straw-burn wheat sowing on 150 acres across various districts but Vice-Chancellor Baldev Singh Dhillon said the university was recommending microbial decomposition of straw in fields, and composting “in that order.” The university has reduced the time for the former to 40 days. It intends to cut it down by half, but there is no fix on when the technology can be deployed. Composting is a good alternative, but farmers might find labour costs a deterrent.

Agriculture Commissioner BS Sidhu did not underplay the harm caused by stubble burning, but his time frame to end it seems too relaxed. He cited the state’s 2009 law against transplanting of rice before June 10, to save loss of groundwater in flooded paddies to evaporation. The campaign against it had started in 2002, he said, when about 1 million hectares used to be early transplanted. By the time the law was enacted, only 2 lakh hectares was, and there were no mass protests against the legislation.

Till a better solution is found, Punjab should practice that which works. In Sangrur district, the administration led by collector Arshdeep Singh Thind has got farmers to plough straw on 12,000 hectares into the soil. That from 2,000 hectares is being supplied to power plants. And the area under conservation agriculture is expected to increase by 1,500 hectares to 4,000 hectares. That still leaves out 268,000 hectares of wheat area. But good practices have a way of spreading rapidly when farmers see and believe.

Vivian Fernandes is a journalist with more than 30 years of practice. He is currently editor of www.smartindianagriculture.in

The views expressed here are those of the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.