Extinguishing the Blaze

Air pollution is a major health concern in many South Asian cities exposing millions of people to extremely toxic air. Apart from the long-term effects like chronic asthma, pulmonary insufficiency, and cardiovascular diseases (Manisalidis et al, 2020), there is evidence suggesting that air pollution negatively impacts worker productivity (Adhvaryu et al, 2019). Given an estimated 8.7 million acres of land under rice cultivation is burnt in Northern India annually, the social costs of burning are massive. 

Stubble (crop residue) burning is a major contributor to air pollution in northern parts of India, where it accounts for up to 40% of air pollution [SAFAR, 2019]. Though a relatively inexpensive process to get rid of crop residue and pests, stubble burning has damaging impacts on the soil fertility and agricultural productivity (Jain et al., 2014). Previous research (Kumar et al, 2015) has highlighted that intensive dual cropping system (where rice is harvested early to accommodate the wheat crop) is a major reason for farmers to adopt burning as a quick measure of crop residue management. Narrow time frame (2-3 weeks after harvesting paddy) to prepare the field for wheat cultivation makes it difficult for farmers to sustainably manage crop residue and burning remains the popular way to deal with it. Furthermore, reports [IGC, 2019] have suggested that farmers lack tools and knowledge to adopt more environmental-friendly alternatives to stubble burning.

Adopting alternate crop residue management (CRM) techniques have proven to be effective in reducing the need for burning (Jambagi at al, 2023). Despite the Indian government’s policies to promote technology for managing crop residues (for example National Policy for Management of Crop Residues in 2014), adoption remains low. Previous evidence has emphasized multiple reasons for low adoption of technology in agricultural sector in developing countries. For example, studies highlight the importance of education (Weir and Knight, 2000), availability of credit (Croppenstedt et al. 2003), availability of inputs (Mureithi et al. 2007), behavioral biases (Duflo et al. 2011), information and learning externalities (Foster and Rosenzwieg, 1995, Horner et al., 2022), etc in driving the adoption of technology.

We conducted multiple focus group discussions with stakeholders in India (farmers, NGOs, bureaucrats, etc) to understand the barriers in adopting sustainable methods of agriculture and came up with two potential solutions: 

1. Incentivising farmers to adopting relatively new early harvest variety seeds (which mature earlier than other varieties, thereby reducing time constraints) and 

2. Providing technical training (removing knowledge constraints) on crop residue management to farmers in India. 

Recent developments have made it possible for certain rice varieties to mature earlier than other popular varieties. For example, Punjab Agricultural University has developed short duration non-Basmati rice varieties like PR 121, PR 124 and PR 126 which mature in 110, 105 and 93 days after transplanting, respectively, as compared to the usual Pusa 44 varieties which take about 130 days after transplanting. Even though the yields of early harvest varieties are marginally lower than that of Pusa 44, Punjab Agricultural University estimated that the net income from shorter-duration varieties is slightly higher due to lower labor, fertilizer, and pesticide requirements. With the growing importance of environmental preservation, the government and agricultural experts are pushing for the increased adoption of early harvest variety seeds.

We implemented a pilot randomised controlled field study with 205 farmers in Punjab, India in 2022 evaluating the impact of information access and input access on agricultural burning. Using data we collected in December 2022, we found that providing information and decomposers to farmers reduced burning by 56% in comparison to control group farmers. Treated farmers also had higher awareness and used more types of alternate crop residue management technologies compared to the control group.

 To measure the outcomes of burning, we are planning to use satellite data to verify burning outcome results. In addition to the survey responses and field verification of burning outcomes, we will collect geo-coordinates of the farmers’ fields, which will allow us to verify the burning outcomes using Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope satellite data. This is important due to inability of field team to manually verify burning outcomes simultaneously for all farmers and presence of priming effects of surveys. Additionally, satellite data will enable us to estimate historic burning rates of these farmers and future burning rates without having to rely on expensive in-person methods each time.

The project aims to contribute to the Government of India’s National Clean Air Program, launched in 2019 to improve air quality in major Indian cities. Given that an estimated 211 million tons of greenhouse gases are emitted in India annually due to crop residue burning [Ravindra et al, 2019], this project  will provide actionable information for academicians, policymakers and farmers in the paddy-growing regions of India.

Crop residue burning creates massive health and environmental externalities and depletes soil health. Furthermore, the negative impacts of crop residue burning are not evenly distributed across the farming community. Small-scale farmers are often the hardest hit, as they have limited access to resources and technologies that can help them manage crop residues. There is also evidence suggesting that people exposed to air pollution have lower worker productivity (Adhvaryu et al, 2019). Therefore, stubble burning induces economic and social inequalities which need to be mitigated using community-engagement and support from civil society organizations. Our project aims to restore some equity in the sense that we target most vulnerable (smallholder) farmers and hope to create a positive impact in their lives. Therefore, one of the major potential benefits of our project is that the farmers would be immediate beneficiaries of the project. By ensuring sustainable management of crop residue, we will train them to decompose the crop residues quickly into soil, thus regaining lost fertility. Less burning would mean cleaner air in the immediate vicinity. The introduction of crop residue management and allied activities will generate a market for such expertise and services, thus stimulating local rural economy. Overall, it would have a positive impact on public well-being and their pulmonary health.

By providing access to new technologies (Pusa decomposers, early harvest variety seeds, etc.) at a subsidized price and assisting farmers by mitigating knowledge gaps about alternate crop residue management systems, our project aims to provide a solution to the long-standing problem of crop residue burning. We believe that government decisions to ban burning only exacerbates the environmental and economic inequality as poorer farmers find it difficult to do it profitably. Therefore, adopting economically and environmentally sustainable solutions is the only way to help the under-represented farmer community in the climate movement.

Our team consist of people who are well verse with the rigors of project design and development and also understand the local context extremely well. 

The leading team member is Piyush Gandhi, a PhD (Economics) student at University of California, Santa Cruz. Having done extensive field work in India, Piyush has the technical skills to develop and lead the project. He grew up in a family where multiple generations had been involved in agriculture and allied activities. Therefore, understanding the problems in agriculture was never difficult for him. He basically speaks the agri-language and has a rapport with local farmers in the rice growing region of India.

 Dhananjay Kumar, the field manager for the project will be responsible for ensuring the field activities and engagements with the farmers are run as per the plan. Having worked in the social sector for over 4 years, Dhananjay understands the local context and will be instrumental in implementing the project.

 Our organization has collaborated at the local as well as the international level and their mentorship has helped us immensely. We collaborated with a Punjab based NGO- Kheti Virasat Mission. They were the implementing partner for the pilot and have been working with farmers in India on the theme of environmental justice since past 15 years. Additionally, support from the agriculture experts from Punjab Agriculture University has been monumental from the design of the project to execution and troubleshooting field obstacles. We have also collaborated with Blum Center at University of California (Santa Cruz) in the US and their financial help and mentorship support was instrumental in our initial years. We have also garnered support from J-PAL organization based out of MIT in the USA who have paid for our travel and field expenses. 

We implemented a pilot randomised controlled field study in Punjab, India in 2022 evaluating the impact of information access and input access on agricultural burning by farmers. We provided a highly subsidised input (PUSA decomposers) and technical training to randomly selected 102 farmers in India (treatment group) and rest 103 farmers maintained status quo (control group). This is usually considered the gold standard to test the effectiveness of a policy/intervention. Using data we collected in December 2022, we compared the outcomes of treatment group with the control group and the results are encouraging:

1. Providing information and decomposers to farmers reduced burning by 56% in comparison to control group farmers.

2. The treatment group farmers used PUSA decomposers on 5-7% more land area as compared to control group farmers. Most of them used it on an experimental 1 acre plot, suggesting a possibility of learning by doing.

3. Farmers in the treatment group wait for 1.2 more days before sowing next crop, suggesting that farmers in treatment group are more patient and wait for the decomposition process.

4. The farmers in treatment group have higher awareness for at least 0.34 more number of alternate methods of managing crop residue as compared to control group farmers.

The results encouraged us to explore further dimensions of technical training and other possible inputs that are pro-environment. Therefore, our current solutions consist of technical training and early harvest variety seeds as inputs to reduce crop residue burning.

We are extremely driven organisation on a mission to solve one of the most pressing issues on our planet-climate change and more specifically, reducing carbon emissions and mitigating air pollution. We have realised that collaboration is the engine of growth in this field, where expert solutions are the way forward. Getting in touch with industry leaders, who have decades of experience behind them will provide a boost to our implementation plans. Moreover, incorporating feedback of other leaders in same industry only polishes our work for guaranteed success. We want to be at the forefront of climate change discussions and want to share our ideas with the world- be it in the form of blogs, demo videos, conferences, media reports or collaborations at the highest level- we want it all. 

Collaborating with technologically gifted organisations will be another area we want to focus on. Given that our solutions use remote-sensing data, we are positive that some organisations out there have sophisticated, high-end climate models that can be used in our project to monitor burning outcomes. Even drone operating companies would be a big boost to our monitoring and evaluation goals of our project. We are excited to know more about this through the partnerships fostered via MIT Solve!

On the financial front, if supported by the grant, we would utilise the grants for funding the intervention expenses (subsidy costs), hiring and training enumerators in conducting surveys and collecting geo-coordinates from the farmers in our project. We have raised some funds from international organisations like Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL), University of California, etc and want to ensure that our solutions keep uplifting the marginalised  farming community of India- such that food security goes hand in hand with climate goals of the country.