Updated: October 8, 2020 1:43:44 pm
The first six days of October saw five times the number of stubble burning incidents in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh than in the corresponding period last year, official data shows. (Representative image)
The first six days of October saw five times the number of stubble burning incidents in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh than in the corresponding period last year, official data shows.
In total, 1,091 incidents of crop stubble burning were recorded in these three states between October 1 and October 6, the most for these dates since at least 2016, according to data compiled by the Indian Institute of Agricultural Research ( IARI) in Delhi.
Smoke from burning crop stubble contributes to air pollution over the national capital and much of the Indo-Gangetic Plain each winter. Farmers burn the rice stubble at this time before preparing the soil for the rabi harvest.
The sharp increase in stubble burning in early October this year follows significantly fewer incidents on these dates (October 1-6) in 2019 (214) and 2018 (426).
Delhi air impact
Farmers in Punjab and Haryana burn rice stubble around this time before preparing the soil for the rabi harvest. Smoke from burning crop stubble contributes to air pollution over the national capital and much of the Indo-Gangetic Plain each winter.
Data collected by IARI’s Laboratory of the Consortium for Research on Monitoring and Modeling of Agroecosystems from Space (CREAMS), which uses satellite remote sensing technology, shows that the highest number of incidents of waste burning during October 1 to 6, this year it took place in Punjab: 841, more than 10 times the number of events of this type at this time in 2019 (79).
A total of 188 residue burns were detected in Haryana, followed by 62 in UP between October 1-6 this year. The numbers were lower in both states during the corresponding period last year: 108 and 27 respectively.
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In Punjab, the highest number of waste burning incidents this year was in Amritsar district (342), followed by Tarn Taran (205); in Haryana, Kurukshetra (56) and Karnal (38) saw the most agricultural fires. UP had scattered events.
Burning waste has been detected in images received from seven research satellites: NASA’s Terra and Aqua; the Suomi, NOAA-18 and NOAA-19 nuclear power plants of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); and MetOp-1 and MetOp-2 from the European Space Agency (ESA). The System of Research and Forecasting Weather and Air Quality (SAFAR-India), under the union Ministry of Earth Sciences, has forecast a deterioration of air quality in Delhi in the coming days due to the increase in burning of stubble in Haryana and Punjab.
“Delhi’s overall AQI (Air Quality Index) is in the upper end (of the) moderate category as expected, and it is likely to touch the poor category late tonight,” SAFAR said in its forecast. short-term for Delhi on Wednesday. . “The AQI is forecast to deteriorate over the next 3 days and is expected to remain in the POOR category with increasing magnitude until October 10,” he said.
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IARI Director Dr. Ashok Kumar Singh said that one reason for the increase in the number of agricultural fires could be the rush of farmers to prepare their fields for planting potatoes.
“In recent years, the acreage of long-lived rice varieties like PUSA-44 has decreased, and the acreage of short-lived varieties like Pusa Basmati-1509 and PR-126 has increased in Punjab,” said Dr. Singh. .
“The short-lived rice varieties are planted around June 15 and harvested in the third week of September, so farmers have about a month to handle the rice straw before sowing the next crop (wheat ) between November 1 and 6. However, farmers who want to grow potatoes try to prepare their fields early, since planting of potatoes begins in the first week of October. To do this, they burn the rice residues ” .
However, Dr. Singh said, the trend seen in the initial farm fire data may not hold, and overall stubble burning may end up being roughly the same as last year.
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