Know How Farmers In Punjab Are Making Money Out Of Stubble Instead Of Burning It

Image Credits: India Times and Hindustan Times

The Logical Indian Crew

Know How Farmers In Punjab Are Making Money Out Of Stubble Instead Of Burning It

Stubble burning impoverished the air quality and became a growing concern in many parts of the country. Coming up with solutions against it, these farmers and their villages have adopted ways to sustainably manage stubble as well as monetise out of it.

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Punjab is well known for its agricultural activities and is a land that is considered perfect for cropping. Along with cropping comes the need for stubble management after every harvest. With the growing demand for crops and the worries about the next crop getting delayed, many farmers had begun resorting to burning the residual crop. This was an easier method that helped them clear the land for the next harvest season.

However, as this practice continued, stubble burning started contributing to air pollution and respiratory concerns, especially among the rural families that were directly involved in agriculture. Acting upon this, a few farmers from Punjab have stepped up to manage and help others manage stubble in a sustainable manner.

With the understanding that "A farmer is as much concerned about the environment as anyone else", these farmers have picked up an age-old alternative for the sustainable management of crop residue.

Stories From The Village Of Paddy And Wheat

A group of farmers based in Punjab have started utilising crop residue as natural fertiliser and material for fuel production instead of burning it. By this means, they have struck two birds with one rock by reducing the consumption of chemical fertilisers and monetising the practice by managing the stubble of other farmers as well.

Bhupinder Singh, a 59-year-old farmer with 30 acres of land in Badarpur, made the sustainable switch from burning paddy stubble in 2018. Instead, he blends the residue with soil using tillage equipment. This nourishes the soil even more effectively than fertilisers and makes it ready for the next sowing season.

Adding on to this, he speaks out of his years of farming experience that the residue gets decomposed within a week and has provided a much better alternative than the potash that was earlier being used for the wheat crops. Conveying the same to other farmer communities in Punjab, Bhupinder was awarded for crop residue management at the state and national levels.

Almost 70 per cent of the farmers in Bhupinder's village have stopped burning paddy stubble and set up a farmers' club where they dispense crop residue management machinery to farmers.

They have machines ranging from the simple tillage MB plough to a happy seeder, and it is given to other farmers in nearby villages on rent. If borrowed by a small farmer, they charge almost nothing for the machines. A report by Hindustan Times quoted him saying, "With more and more people becoming aware of the harmful effects of burning paddy, they are managing it instead of setting it on fire."

Amarjit Singh from Burj Tehal Dass village in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district has also been practising sustainable residue management for the past 15 years. Growing crops on more than 100 acres, he sells the stubble to a nearby factory which turns the same into fuel. Apart from that, he has joined with some farmers to rent machines like happy seeders, super seeders, ploughs, and mulchers to others.

Yet another farmer, Avtar Singh of village Theri, has been managing paddy with the help of balers - a machine used to compress crop residue into bales. He collects stubble from farmers from four nearby districts and sells it to a thread factory in Dera Bassi and an electricity-producing company in Ferozepur, which uses the residue as fuel. Avtar, who used to cultivate 75 acres of land earlier, has now come down to 25 acres to completely focus on managing the stubble residue from other farmers.

Thereby resolving a long-term problem that has been affecting the environment.

The Intensity Of The Issue Is Multifold

Punjab generates around 180 lakh tonnes of paddy straw annually, and soon after its harvest, they have a very short window of time for growing rabi crop wheat. To not delay it, farmers tend to set their fields on fire to clear off the area quickly. This is how paddy straw burning became one of the reasons behind the alarming spike in air pollution levels in Delhi and adjoining areas.

These parallels are noticeable as every time there has been a farm fire, a drop in the Air Quality Index (AQI) is seen. Yet, a large number of such farm fire incidents were recorded, from about 50,590 such incidents in 2018 to 71,304 in 2021.

Despite being a seasonal problem, stubble burning has contributed to about 20 to 50 per cent of the overall air pollution loading in the country. The smoke that is released from farm fires contains a range of toxic contaminants such as carbon monoxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide(SO2), particulate matter (pm) and ground-level ozone (O3).

These were attributed to reduced lung function among rural residents and other respiratory symptoms such as wheezing, breathlessness on exertion, coughing all day long, skin rashes, itchiness of the eyes, and so on.

The stubble burning concern was dealt with in a similar manner by the Chhattisgarh government through a 'gauthan' experiment. Gauthans were a five-acre plot that was dedicated to the collection of all the unused stubble in the form of donations and was held commonly by each village.

The stubble would then be converted into organic fertiliser by mixing it with cow dung and a few natural enzymes. This scheme set up over 2,000 such gauthan systems within a short period and was able to generate large-scale employment opportunities among rural youth, reduce air pollution, and switch to healthier farming practices.

Also Read: Meet Padma Awardee Amai Mahalinga Naik, Who Converted His Barren Land Into Flourishing Farm

Contributors Suggest Correction
Writer : Laxmi Mohan Kumar
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Editor : Snehadri Sarkar
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Creatives : Laxmi Mohan Kumar

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