[Assam] [WaterWatch] Blazing Punjab: Flaming Fields

[Manoj Das]

Someone can bundle the project and replace the burning with some other eco
friendly practice and get *CDM* (Carbon credit...www.unfcc.int/cdm...)
benefits. In any case the carbon emitted by the burning will be sequested by
the next crop, so net emission will be nil. But, if we stop burning
definitely there will be carbon credits to be earned. that's my logic..

Recently a team of Japanese/Thai organic farmers visited NER on NEDFi's
invite and introduced something called EM (Effective Micro-organism), the
heart of organic cultivation. EM is a mixture of 80+ friendly bacterias used
on the soil to break up inorganic matter, bio-mass and enhance productivity
and disease fighting abilities.

Yesterday I read somewhere about the Chinese growing giant sized vegetables
from space seeds. 2000 kgs of seeds were shot up to space by the Chinese
over last 25 years. These were brought back and planted in experimental
fields. The results are reported to be extra ordinary. Pumpkins as large as
40 kgs and tomatoes upto 5 kgs weight are produced in these farms. This
could be one way of feeding their teeming 1.2 billion people. I don't know
if my Bharat Varsh is trying something similar.

Burning the straw after harvesting season is also the practice in Assam. I
used to love the smell of burning 'nora'- local name for the stalk/straw.
Brings kind of nostalgia, when I think about it. There must be some
reason/logic for this age-old practice. Could be that the eggs of pests are
killed that way. We need not condemn it out right. Why not some scientific
study carried out by scientists.

Happy weekend!

Cheers!!

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 4:37 AM, mc mahant <mikemahant at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Answer is: EDUCATE  >>
>
>  Biochemitization of Agwastes through Humification-- for synergic
> growth.Soil Bacteria is waiting to do that for you.
>  Burning is not Science.It is Suicide.
> Punjab is known  to us from a distance for its "Advanced Agriculture/Agro
> Management"
> MM
>
>
> To: waterwatch at yahoogroups.comFrom: umendradutt at gmail.comDate: Sat, 17 May
> 2008 06:21:34 +0530Subject: [WaterWatch] Blazing Punjab: Flaming Fields
>
>
>
>
>
> Blazing Punjab: Flaming Fields
> Burning of Crop residue – Need of Civilizational Intervention
>
> By Umendra Dutt
>
> Every day I pass through villages and see fires in the just harvested
> fields. An absolutely avoidable ecological destruction and environmental
> violence is going on at the hands of brainwashed farmers. The trees, the
> earth friendly creatures, the micro organisms are getting destroyed for no
> rhyme or reason. Farmers are burning the wheat stalks just in order to save
> a few hundred rupees, time .This dangerous practice is bound to play havoc
> in a few years and these shortsighted misadventures are going to extract a
> huge price in terms of money, time, environmental health, ecosystem and
> natural resources.Countless innocent, man and crop friendly living forms are
> being criminalised. These living forms actually rejuvenate and energise our
> soil, our mother earth.
>
> Punjab is burning, really. A very painful scene we are witnessing every day
> around us. Madness, a mass psychosis of people unconcerned with the results
> of their own misdeed is happening around us, which is terribly upsetting. It
> is reminiscent of 'thousand fires in Rome', but at the end of those, Nero
> added another page in human history. But what are we achieving here with
> these unnecessary fires in our fields?  We are burning Wheat crop residue in
> more then 5500 Sq KMs and 12685 Sq KMs in Rice crop residues and according
> to a study based on satellite data, the Emission Factors (EFs) for wheat
> residue burning as estimated CO- 34.66g/Kg , NOx – 2.63g/Kg, CH4 – 0.41g/Km
> , PM10 – 3.99g/Kg, PM2.5 – 3.76g/Kg .
>
> These large-scale burning, releases trace gases, along with sub
> micron-sized aerosols, which are known to aggravate lung and respiratory
> diseases. And we address earth as Dharti Ma.
>
> Burning of the crop residue not only adds to atmospheric pollution and
> emission of green house gases but also leads to loss of rich renewable soil
> rejuvenating organic resources. It gives me an uneasy feeling about our
> society, its contemporary character and it also indicates a kind of
> shallowness of my society. It is so disturbing that I questions my own self.
> We have to pose this question to ourselves and to the so called experts as
> to why this seasonal burning at all?
>
> Who is to blame? Are our farmers responsible? What is the reason for this?
> Why our society is behaving like this?  Are the changing life styles also
> contributing in this indifferent attitude of our society? Why our social
> scientists are indifferently quiet on this burning issue?
>
> Is it simple that farmers are burning up crop straw to save few hundred
> rupees only?  Despite knowing the adverse effects of this devastating
> practice? Why the farmers are intent to burn stubble?
> Then some more questions also need to have answers. Where is the solution?
> Can technology provide solution? Is it due to lack of technology and its
> application or adoption only? I think it is the unmindfull application of
> technology that is responsible for this crisis. Because technology doesn't
> come in isolation, it carries a cultural imprint with itself along with a
> carbon footprint. Then, there is physiological baggage also.  Any new
> technology we adopt, it impacts our way of thinking, our analysis, our
> perceptions and our relations with surroundings – the nature and the
> mankind.
> We had propagated various new technologies in course of modern development
> and Green revolution. Our experts are proud of these new technologies; they
> are very fond of talking about its adoption rate, success rate and other
> benefits. We had started evaluating every thing mechanically in narrow terms
> of profitability. The green revolution agricultural paradigm has also
> displaced our value systems from agriculture; it has destroyed the very
> basic civilizational element in our convoluted agriculture vision.
> When there is no moral code, no values, no beliefs, no ethics then
> certainly there will be no compassion at all, no feeling on oneness with our
> surroundings. Then the whole earth is supposed to be for our self-indulgence
> only, and the farm is only a piece of land,  a mere  area, which is owned by
> me, I am the owner of that , so it depends on me only - What I do to that
> land. I want maximum profits out of it, because I have to address my lust of
> money.
>  I was told by the experts to put poisons in my land to kill pests, they
> told me it is the development. I was taught by the experts and highly
> civilized persons that I should use machines – Harvester Combine to minimize
> my expenditure on human labour, as labour is a problem. Then one agriculture
> economist teaches me lessons of profitability – economic viability – and I
> was told that now I am a progressive farmer. When I was made totally
> self-centered unconcerned of my surroundings, my ecology, sustainability of
> life. Then this agriculture establishment celebrated my progress. They told
> me it is the way of life now; this is the new path of development. There is
> euphoria all around and no body has time to talk about my interdependence on
> Nature.  New machines, technologies and new definitions have taken place of
> the wisdom I got from my ancestors.
>
>
> The burning of crop residue should not be seen in isolation, we have to
> take a holistic picture. It is not a problem in itself… it a symptom of
> deep-rooted civilizational crisis of our society and our age. We have to
> address the crisis on much wider canvass.
> Mankind is behaving like this towards every natural thing – wether it is
> water, air, trees, forests, animals, the mechanized mind and self-seeking
> way of life has made our whole society insensitive to nature. The crisis
> mitigation does not lie in technological interventions only. The agriculture
> expert mind- set and solutions suggested by it has already ruined our
> ecology and our agricultural heritage. Now we cannot ask them to suggest
> solutions. Those who were worshiped for more then four decades for their
> expertise now should not be asked for solutions, because they can provide
> another technological answer and mere technology is not a complete solution
> at all.
>
> There are still thousands of farmers who have no rotavator or Happy-seeder
> but they are not burning the stubble. Agriculture implements are only tools
> to be used; the real answer is in our mindset, the vision and feeling of a
> relationship with Earth, other forms of life and whole ecology.
> While NFL at Bathinda produces 5 lakh tons of urea which gives near about
> 2.5 lakh tons of nitrogen with lots of energy consumption, water consumption
> and environmental pollution, so one fifth of the total production of
> nitrogen is burned due to inefficient management systems put forth by the
> government.
> Farmers burn 196 lakh MTs of straw every year, worth crores of rupees,
> besides losing 38.5 lakh MTs of organic carbon, 59,000 MTs of nitrogen,
> 2,000 MTs of phosphorous and 34,000 MTs of potassium every year. If
> government feels that this should be saved, it should take up a large
> campaign, asking farmers to use the straw as mulch, spread with Jeevaamrita
> kind of solutions. If it involves additional costs for the farmers,
> government should pay for it.
>
> Several farmers associated with Kheti Virasat Mission who are practicing
> natural farming, have already adopted Jeevaamrita to mulch stubble in their
> farms. They are not into burning madness, not because of technology but due
> to their conviction. Off course farmer needs some methods to mulch all crop
> straw. Jeevaamrita provides appropriate solution.
>
> We should develop a strong campaign asking Govt to initiate a process of
> asking people to adopt straw mulching; this would automatically lead to
> promotion of natural farming once we get space in the campaign. The
> prerequisite of the solution is a civilizational intervention to
> re-establish mother–son relation of farmer with Earth. We have to redefine
> the meaning of development, progressive farmer, profitability and
> sustainability. We have to evolve a new idiom to evaluate our contemporary
> ecological crisis.
>
> The whole society and particularly the elite and experts must take the
> responsibility of their transgression; farmers are expressing the same what
> the society has taught them. This burning of stubble is the natural outcome
> of the economic and agriculture model we are pursuing from last fifty years.
> It is the result of a paradigm we had chosen, propagated by the experts of
> those times.
>
> Let whole Punjabi society accept its role in this misadventure. This is the
> only one dimension of whole ecological-civilizational crisis that our
> society is facing and which will certainly affect lives of our future
> generations. We have to change Collective Mindset of our society and this
> can be only being done through a process for new model of development.
> Let us start this voyage to build our own developmental paradigm to come
> out this self inflicting devastation.
>
>
> -- Umendra DuttExecutive DirectorKHETI VIRASAT MISSIONBishnandi
> BazarJAITU-151202 District-Faridkot,PunjabPhones:01635-503415
> 09872682161umendradutt.blogspot.comGod is omni present in entire nature and
> hurting nature is violence against the God
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-- 
Manoj Kumar Das
C 172 GF, Sarvodaya Enclave
New Delhi 17 India
0091 9312650558 (HP) 9910972654