Burning Farm Waste: Cheap Practice, Costly for Nature

Farmers in Punjab, a region in India known for its agricultural productivity, often resort to burning the remnants of their crops, mainly for the following reasons:

1. Quick Turnaround: Crop burning is a fast way to clear the field for the next planting season. It is seen as a time-saving practice compared to other methods of disposal, which is particularly important when the window between harvesting one crop and sowing the next is narrow.
2. Cost-Effectiveness: The cost of manually or mechanically clearing fields of crop residue can be prohibitive for many farmers. Burning is a low-cost method requiring minimal labor and no expenditure on machinery.
3. Pest and Disease Control: Some farmers believe that burning crop residues helps to eliminate pests and diseases that may affect the next crop.
4. Lack of Alternatives: There is often a lack of awareness or accessibility to alternative methods of crop residue management, such as converting it into compost or using it for bioenergy production.
5. Insufficient Support: The financial and infrastructural support for adopting environmentally friendly residue management practices is often lacking. Government initiatives may exist, but the implementation on the ground can be insufficient.

The practice, however, has significant negative impacts on the environment, including air pollution leading to health issues, soil degradation, and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. 

Recognizing these impacts, there are efforts underway to educate farmers about sustainable agricultural practices and to provide them with resources to manage crop residues without burning.

The Indian farm state of Punjab has two growing seasons: one from May to September and another from November to April. Many farmers rotate between crops, planting rice in May and wheat in November. In order to quickly prepare their fields for the wheat crop, many farmers simply burn leftover plant debris after harvesting rice. The practice is known as paddy stubble burning. 

Burning agricultural waste is a huge problem -- causing pollution and contributing to climate change.

Some startups such as Farm2Fuel believes that agricultural waste can be converted into climate-friendly fuel in the biomass power plant instead of being burned. In the power plant, biomass can be used as efficient fuel for energy production which is fed into the regional power supply system.