NEW DELHI: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) images of the past ten days show large parts of India are dotted with fires, stretching across Uttar Pradesh (UP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and even some southern states. In sweltering summer, these fires are intensifying heat and causing black carbon (a component of soot with high global warming effect) pollution.
Some of these dots may be forest fires but Hiren Jethva, research scientist at Nasa Goddard Space Flight Center, says fires in central India may be mostly crop fires as forest fires are usually uncontrolled and, therefore, produce more smoke and haze.
Agricultural scientists are linking the massive rise in the incidence of crop fires in recent years to the dependence of farmers on combine harvesters, which leave a short stubble behind. The practice of crop stubble burning is not limited to the northern states of Haryana and Punjab, where the problem is rampant.
While burning of paddy stubble has been a common practice among farmers since it is unsuitable as fodder, increasing incidence of wheat stubble burning is a relatively new trend. States with crop fires seen in Nasa maps have a dominant rice-wheat cropping system. There are two choices of harvesting for farmers—manual or by combine harvester. But with acute shortage of labour, combine harvesters are turning out to be the quickest and cheapest mode of harvesting and preparing the soil for paddy.
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