Every year, towards the end of crop season in the third quarter, Delhi faces a serious hazard of peaking air pollution.?
Part of this pollution is caused by the burning of paddy crop residue in Punjab and neighbouring states. A team of individuals is now addressing this problem by utilizing this paddy crop residue as compost.
Naandi Foundation, a social sector organisation in India, is sending out teams to Delhi¡¯s neighbouring paddy farms to stop burning of crop residue. A recent tweet by CEO Manoj Kumar highlights the efforts.
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Kumar tweets that the team has already taken 1000 metric tonnes of paddy straw from these farms. As per Kumar, the paddy straw will now be treated with microbial biomes to create ¡°nutritious soil for vegetables in our Delhi.¡±
The effort of creating organic soil enrichment from all the paddy crop burning fodder is a part of a larger program being run by the foundation since April 2015.?
On its website, Naandi sheds light on the program directed towards the betterment of agricultural practices in Punjab. For this, the company has collaborated with Danone Nutricia, a baby food company of Groupe Danone, under the Danone Ecosystem Fund.
Through the initiative, the foundation looks to inspire ¡°biodiversity, non-chemical agriculture and dairy farming.¡± It specifies that as of now, the projects are being implemented in two districts of Punjab - Moga and Ludhiana. It aims to cover more such districts in the future.
It is easy to see how the project is a win-win for all. The paddy crop residue being converted into a useful form that will not only help in more plantation but will also help cut down the air pollution in Delhi and surrounding areas. So it does not come as a surprise that people on Twitter want to replicate the idea or help in increasing its scale. Check out some of the reactions to the noble effort here.
For a seemingly impossible problem that repeats every year, it's good to see people trying to tackle the massive problem of paddy crop burning or crop stubble burning that's a constant cause for air quality degradation in Northern India just before winter begins.