• Dr.Shabnam Kaur Sodhi

Stubble burning is a practice of removing paddy crop residues from the field for sowing next crop viz. wheat. A convenient way to get rid of the whopping 23 million metric ton of grass and hay left behind by rice cultivation is to burn them. However, this practice contributes to air pollution in cities like Delhi, where the air quality is already the worst in the world. In 2017, researchers from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), an environmental organization headquartered in the US, met with a few collaborators from different institutes in India, to discuss this ‘burning’ problem and find alternatives to the practice. Although crop burning is prohibited, farmers continue to defy the ban, due to a lack of greener alternatives that are feasible, affordable and scalable. In a new study, Dr Shyamsundar and her collaborators from India, Mexico and the USA, have evaluated the impact of alternative practices to stubble burning on the environment, and their profitability. The analysis, published in the journal Science, finds that using Happy Seeder—a machine that can sow wheat in the presence of rice straw—is profitable for farmers and can also help the environment. The researchers found that using the Happy Seeder led to a nearly 10-20% increase in farmer profits on average. Thus, farmers can, on average, reap a benefit of INR 11498 per hectare by switching from the most common burning practices to the use of a Happy Seeder for mulching. The machine can be mounted on a tractor, and it cuts and lifts rice straw, sows wheat into the bare soil, and deposits the straw over the planted area as mulch. However, not all farmers currently have access to equipment like the Happy Seeder. The researchers suggest that the government and the private sector can play an active role in increasing the adoption of no-burn practices

Stubble, Pollution, Burning And Happy Seeder

"STUBBLE BURNING IN INDIA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.358-359, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907M45.pdf

"STUBBLE BURNING IN INDIA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp358-359, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907M45.pdf