Addressing India’s Stubble Burning Issue | 21 Apr 2025

Source: TH 

Why in News? 

A 2025 study by IIM Amritsar finds that stubble burning in Punjab is driven by structural market distortions and policy incentives particularly Minimum Support Price (MSP), reflecting how state-led interventions can unintentionally reinforce unsustainable agricultural practices.

What are the Key Reasons for Persistence of Stubble Burning in India? 

• Policy-Induced Mono-Cropping Patterns: The MSP system prioritizes the production of wheat and rice, providing farmers with guaranteed income and reducing price risks, especially in states like Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.  
  • This discourages crop diversification and leads to the accumulation of paddy stubble, which farmers often burn to clear fields quickly for the next sowing season. 
• Market Distortions and Price Pressures: The agricultural marketing system in India is distorted, with farmers being reliant on middlemen (arhtias) who control crop prices, credit access, and market linkages.  
  • Farmers sell their produce at artificially low prices set by these middlemen, often leading to debt bondage.  
    • A RBI survey (May-July 2024) found that farmers received only 40-67% of consumer prices for major rabi crops. 
  • The stagnant MSP rates fail to cover rising cultivation costs, pushing farmers to adopt cost-effective, albeit harmful, practices like stubble burning. 
• Deficit of Viable Alternatives: While the state penalizes stubble burning, it fails to provide affordable and sustainable alternatives to manage crop residue.  
  • The lack of adequate government support and infrastructure forces farmers to rely on stubble burning as a quick and inexpensive solution. 
• Climate Stress and Yield Volatility: Unpredictable monsoons and rising temperatures due to climate change have increased farming uncertainty.  
  • For instance, late rains in October 2023 delayed harvesting, pushing farmers to resort to stubble burning for quick field clearance amidst overlapping sowing schedules. 
• Ineffective Implementation of Bio-Decomposers: Bio-decomposers like the Pusa Decomposer face low field usage due to logistical delays, inconsistent results, and lack of follow-up.  
  • Without proper training and timely distribution, these eco-friendly solutions remain ineffective at scale. 

How Can India Address the Issue of Stubble Burning?

• Promote Sustainable Crop Diversification: Farmers must be encouraged to shift from paddy to low-residue, water-efficient crops like millets, maize, or pulses. 
  • Guaranteed MSP, assured procurement, and private sector involvement are also essential for long-term economic security and also helping in conserving groundwater. 
• Market & Value Chain for Stubble Products: There is a need for creating a market for stubble-based products like fodder, pellets, and packaging materials. 
  • Strengthening the value chain through improved infrastructure for collection, processing, and distribution is essential. 
  • Link stubble value chains with MGNREGA and promote FPOs for aggregation and market access, enhancing rural livelihoods. 
• Enhanced Regulatory Interventions: Regulatory interventions to manage stubble burning can be categorized into three levels: 
  • Strict enforcement of laws with penalties for non-compliance. 
  • Issuing permits under specific conditions where stubble burning is necessary or unavoidable. 
  • Encouraging productive use of stubble by providing incentives like subsidies, tax breaks, or direct payments for stubble-based products. 
• Fair Pricing for Farmers: Fair pricing for farmers should be ensured by improving price transparency, breaking middlemen control, and enhancing direct market linkages.  
  • This would ensure farmers receive better income, reducing the reliance on harmful practices like stubble burning. 
• Promote Biofuels, Fertilizers Production:  Incentivize biofuels and bio-based fertilizers from crop residues by supporting small-scale units, commercializing the supply chain, and promoting industrial-scale demand in bio-CNG, ethanol, and packaging industries.  
  • The Chhattisgarh Gauthans Model is a community-led initiative where villages set up five-acre plots to collect stubble through parali daan and convert it into organic fertilizer using cow dung and natural enzymes. 
• Strengthen Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs) and Mechanization Access: Establish well-equipped CHCs at the village level with booking apps and GPS-enabled fleet tracking.  
  • Subsidize rental costs and synchronize them with harvest schedules, providing demand-driven mechanization for small and marginal farmers who cannot afford their own equipment. 
• Establish Joint Task Forces: Create joint task forces involving agriculture, environment, health, and rural development ministries across states like Punjab, Haryana, UP, and Delhi.  
  • These task forces should ensure coordinated efforts, with shared accountability, to address pollution and align central pollution plans with local realities. 

Conclusion 

Addressing stubble burning in India necessitates promoting alternative solutions like subsidizing agricultural implements, developing biomass power plants, and incentivizing biofuels and fertilizers from crop residues. Strengthening research, improving residue collection infrastructure, and fostering farmer awareness are key.