Stubble Burning: Government Buckles Up, Farmers in Disbelief

Haryana Farmers are in disbelief over the government’s decision of spraying Pusa bio-decomposer to curb the farm fires which choke states like Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh on a yearly basis.

More than one thousand farmers have shown interest and signed up to benefit from the scientific technique. The decomposer was sprayed over three lakh acres of land in Haryana’s fields last year. It has already been in use in the states of Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh for past few years. Even so, the cases of stubble fires went up to 7197 in the year 2021 from 4202 in the year 2020.

Crop Residue burning, an agricultural practice that has long been used as a form of slash and burn technique in Indian farming society. Although it has very few temporary benefits like boosting the fertility of the soil, it harms the environment in a severe way. According to the reports of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), the burning of one tonne of paddy straw accounts for a loss of 5.5 kg Nitrogen, 2.3 kg phosphorus, 15 kg potassium, and 1.2 kg sulfur besides, organic carbon.

To curb the burning of straw stubble, the government will spray bio-decomposer, free of cost, covering over 34.1 lakh acres of paddy fields in the state.

Every year as a result of fire-crackers, stubble burning, and low wind speed, winter pollution spikes in the city. However, farmers are hesitant about the government’s policy. They claim that burning is the only good method as it is the fastest method available to them for preparing the land for the next season.

The previous version of the Pusa Decomposer which was in the form of capsules had to be further processed through various procedures, by mixing it with products like jaggery and gram flour. Whereas the decomposer available this year is in liquid form wherein for 1 acre of land around 10 litres of decomposer solution have to be mixed in 200 litres of water which is comparatively a simpler method to be used at a local level.

For the decomposer to work it takes around 10-15 days. Unless the time gap taken by the solution to work is not decreased, farmers will not accept the method on a large scale as the lapse between harvesting and sowing season is very small. 

The Agricultural Department has classified 1104 Haryana villages into two zones – red and yellow, on the basis of satellite data available of the farm fires of last year.

The hotspots of stubble burning centres are dispersed across districts like Ambala, Fatehabad, Hisar, Jind, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar, Sonipat, Palwal, Rohtak, Panipat, and Kaithal. As compared to the last year, the number of villages being monitored for stubble straw burning is higher this year.