Agriculture
Reduction in Stubble Burning Incidents
- 14 Aug 2019
- 2 min read
Recently, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) held that there has been a considerable reduction in crop residue burning incidents in 2018.
- 41% reduction in stubble burning incidents in 2018 over 2016.
- Over 4500 villages of Haryana & Punjab declared as Zero Stubble Burning Villages.
- The Central Sector Scheme on Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-Situ Management of Crop Residue in the State of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh & NCT of Delhi, can be attributed to reduction in crop stubble burning.
Crop Stubble Burning
- Burning crop residue causes phenomenal pollution problems in the atmosphere and huge nutritional loss and physical health deterioration to the soil. E.g.:
- The burning of one tonne of paddy straw releases 3 kg particulate matter, 60 kg CO, 1460 kg CO2, 199 kg ash and 2 kg SO2.
- These gases affect human health due to general degradation in air quality resulting in aggravation of eye and skin diseases. Fine particles can also aggravate chronic heart and lung diseases.
Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-Situ Management of Crop Residue
- The scheme aims to address air pollution by subsidizing machinery required for in-situ management of crop residue for the period 2018-19 to 2019-20.
- Components of the Scheme
- Establish Farm Machinery Banks for custom hiring of in-situ crop residue management machinery.
- Financial Assistance to the farmers for Procurement of Agriculture Machinery and Equipment.
- Information, Education and Communication for awareness on in-situ crop residue management.
- In-situ Crop Residue Management.
- The harvested crop stalks/ stubbles are chopped into small pieces and incorporated in-situ into the soil with varying efficiencies depending upon the left over residue
