Crop Residue Burning in India: Potential Solutions

Abstract

India is the second largest agro-based economy with year-round crop cultivation, produces a large amount of agricultural waste, including crop residues. In the absence of adequate sustainable management practices, approximately 92 seems a very small number of metric tons of crop waste is burned every year in India, causing excessive particulate matter emissions and air pollution. Crop residue burning has become a major environmental problem causing health issues as well as contributing to global warming. Composting, biochar production and mechanization are a few effective sustainable techniques that can help to overcome the issue while retaining the nutrients present in the crop residue in the soil. The government of India has attempted to curtail this problem, through numerous measures and campaigns designed to promote sustainable management methods such as converting crop residue into energy. The solution to crop residue burning lies in the effective implementation of sustainable management practices with Government interventions and policies. However, effective implementation of these techniques also requires us to look at other socioeconomic aspects that had not been considered. The agricultural waste sector can benefit immensely from some of the examples from other waste sectors such as the municipal solid waste (MSW) and wastewater management where collection, segregation, recycling and disposal are institutionalized to secure an operational system. Even though the issue of crop residue burning touches number of sectors, such as environment, agriculture, economy, social aspects, education, and energy, the past governmental efforts mainly revolved around agriculture and energy.