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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Stubble burning blamed for Delhi pollution: Why farmers carry out the exercise -Manraj Grewal Sharma

Stubble burning blamed for Delhi pollution: Why farmers carry out the exercise -Manraj Grewal Sharma

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published Published on Nov 13, 2017   modified Modified on Nov 13, 2017
-Hindustan Times

The paddy straw is of no use to the farmer unlike the wheat straw, which is used as animal fodder. The paddy straw has high silica content that animals can’t digest.

Chandigarh:
The plain farming chore of burning after-harvest paddy stalks as farmers prepared their fields in Punjab and Haryana for the wheat crop never headlined so much as in the past month.

The swirling smoke from the fire is blamed for the thick haze that has shrouded New Delhi, where the conditions were exacerbated by fog, dust, vehicle exhaust fumes and no high wind to blow the toxic air away.

The air quality in Chandigarh too has become “very poor” with the air quality index (AQI) hovering in the 301-400 range, against the acceptable limit of 100.

Farmers switching to mechanical harvesters, introduced in the early 1980s, could be the genesis of the problem. The machine cuts, threshes and cleans rice from ripe paddy in a matter of hours, saving days of menial labour.

Over the years, more farmers bought these machines and those who didn’t have one could get a harvester on rent for a nominal Rs 1,300, or hereabouts, for an acre.

The downside is that harvesters skim from the top and leave 80% of the paddy plant — six to eight inches long — on the field. Except for the Basmati variety, the straw is useless.

Unlike wheat stalks that are used as animal fodder, the paddy straw has high silica content that animals can’t digest. And Basmati with its low silica content is grown only in 450,000 acres.

Since farmers need to sow wheat within a fortnight of harvesting paddy, they burn the straw, or paraali, to save time, labour and money.

About 3 million acres are cultivated for paddy in Punjab and 20 million tonnes of stubble are generated every year, said Jasbir Singh Bains, the state’s director of agriculture.

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Hindustan Times, 11 November, 2017, http://www.hindustantimes.com/punjab/why-do-farmers-burn-paddy-stubble/story-cN5uXCkzIr8Cs9K1R9TtVK.html


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