The ever-rising instances of stubble burning year after year, causing major high pollution levels in the national capital and other northern regions of the country, could be majorly driven by farmers’ efforts to increase production by sowing longer-duration types of paddies.
According to Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), the state sows 64 different paddy varieties, out of which 46 are unrecommended, and mostly all are longer-lasting cultivars.
This year, farmers in Punjab had planted paddy on 64 lakh acres, excluding Basmati. About 24.40 lakh acres of this total, or 38 percent, were planted with not advised and longer duration crops. A little bit more than 21.64% of PR 126, the most popular short-duration paddy, was planted with PUSA 44, the most popular long-duration variety.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR) among others have both drawn attention to the issue.
The data further shows that 3 kinds of crops that are not at all advised, were sown over about 28 percent of the area - PUSA 44 (21.89%), Peeli PUSA (3.68%), and Dogar PUSA (1.97 percent). The other unrecommended cultivars, such as CR 112 (3.45%) and Super 110, were planted on 10% of the available land (1.13 percent).
In addition to PR 126, the other widely used and advised short variations include PR-121 (14.15%), PR 128 (7.53%), PR 114 (4.30%), PR 131 (3.78%), PR 130 (3.27%), PR 122 (2.14%), and PR 118 (1.08 percent).
Short and Long Duration Paddy:
While the longer-duration paddy takes 130 days or more to mature, the shorter-duration paddy takes 93 to 111 days. The 25–30-day nursery time is not included in the duration.
The short-duration crops can be harvested in the middle of September or the first few days of October, giving farmers a one-month window to get the fields ready for wheat planting. The long-duration paddy types, however, are harvested in the last week of October or the first week of November.
Short-duration varieties not only enable farmers 25 days to manage the stubble, but they also use less irrigation water and save money on inputs. Punjab begins sowing wheat on November 1 and covers 80–85 percent of the region in the following 15 days.
However, the farmers back their choice saying that the shorter-duration cultivars recognized by the PAU yield less than longer-duration (unrecommended) kinds. They assert that long-lasting cultivars provide a yield of 34 to 37 quintals per acre.
District-wise sowing of long-duration paddy:
Data from the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) show that Barnala had the greatest percentage of unrecommended long varieties (72.82%), including 71.89% of PUSA types. With 66.77% of the total 2.12 lakh hectares planted in long-lasting types including PUSA 44 and Peeli PUSA, Sangrur came in second.
Other districts with significant areas of long-term crops included Faridkot, Muktsar Sahib, Moga, Ludhiana, Mansa, Bathinda, Patiala, and Fazilka, where long-term crops made up 61.42 percent, 60.48 percent, 59.05 percent, 51.65 percent, 47.89 percent, 42.28 percent, and 41.14 percent, respectively, of the paddy area.
Stubble-burning statistics show that all of these districts experienced a significant number of farm fires, with Sangrur experiencing the most of these events with 5,228 and Bathinda following closely behind (4,321). Additionally, more than 50% of the entire area planted in paddy was burned in these 10 districts.
