Stubble Burning Keeps Ruining Indian Lives With High Pollution Until Government Decides To Act

After what was a fairly clear September, the National Capital Region was swept up in a haze again last week. And as the smoke rolled in, the air quality began to fall, well before any crackers sounded out for Diwali. That's because it's that time of year when farmers burn their crop stubble to prepare for the next crop planting.

Images courtesy: Reuters

As of the time of writing, the air quality index in Delhi registered "unhealthy" across most parts of the city, with PM2.5 levels above 150 in some places. That basically means possible breathing problems for everyone, and specifically danger for people with lung and heart disease and young children. Heck, you can even see the smoke from space.

The problem is, this situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Why does this keep happening?

For those of you that don't know, stubble burning is what it's called when farmers clear their fields of the crop stubble left over after harvest. As the verb indicates, they set fire to their fields to burn it out.

Now, this was a practice widely carried out across the world until well into the 1990s, until most government outlawed it, including ours. That's because it's by far the fastest way to clear a field for new crops, and it also kills herbicide-resistant weeds and pests in the field, before planting takes place.

On the down side of course is the fact that, apart from other effects, this also releases a massive amount of pollution into the air, including both particulate matter and carbon dioxide. Which is the reason the Punjab Pollution Control Board outlawed the practice. And yet, farmers in North India continue to carry on after every harvest season.

And when only the farmers in Punjab and Haryana are collectively burning about 35 million tonnes of crop waste, one can imagine how much pollution is entering our atmosphere and our cities.

How does this affect us?

Studies have estimated that crop residue burning releases approximately 150 million tonnes of CO2 in to the atmosphere each year, as well as at least 9 million tonnes of carbon monoxide, 1.28 million tonnes of particulate matter and about 70,000 tonnes of black carbon.

Because of how the winds blow, most of that pollution drifts across the NCR region and towards the north-eastern side of the country. As this sweeps across cities like Delhi, it drastically reduces the air's breathability. This can worsen existing conditions like asthma and cardiovascular disease, increasing the risks for the old and infirm.

Even in healthy people however, there's no escaping the plethora of side effects. This could be anything from respiratory disorders, to decreased lung function, arrhythmia, heart attacks, lung cancer, and more. According to a study conducted by Dr Vitull K Gupta, a professor of medicine at Bathinda, 84.5 percent of people in 2016 were suffering from health problems due to increased incidence of smog.

It's not exactly the best for the soil either. Though stubble burning does in fact kills weeds and pests, the heat also kills off bacterial and fungal populations critical for a fertile soil. Not to mention all the crop residue being burned instead of being redistributed is a waste of nutrients, lower the overall nutrient levels of the soil.

So why aren't we doing something else?

Well, because of all of this the Indian government has outlawed stubble burning. It can result in fines and more. The problem is that the system hasn't really been enforced proactively by the government.

There are a number of machines that can be used to deal with crop residue instead of burning it. Some of them just recover the stubble and hay for easy disposal (and sale as straw feed) whereas others re-incorporate the residue into the fields so as to better nourish the soil. However, even renting these machines instead of buying them isn't cheap.

The central and state governments in fact had previously promised farmers they would compensate them for using methods other than stubble burning. However, without any cash in hand, farmers are reluctant to adopt a system there's no guarantee they'll be compensated for.

And there aren't even any subsidies in place either so farmers can buy these machines for themselves. In fact, some that were provided to farmers in areas like Punjab were reportedly faulty to begin with.

So despite technically having a solution, what we're left with is an impasse surrounded by red tape. Instead of fixing our pollution problem (or at least part of it), we're standing around with our hands in our pockets tracking the smog clouds by satellite each year, because bureaucracy doesn't move fast enough.

All the while wondering if our lungs will survive the next harvest.