Nexus Between Crop Residue Burning, Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development Goals Over North-Western India

Abstract

The crop residue burning in India particularly North-western India is responsible for air pollution episodes and public health concerns; greenhouse gases emissions and radiation imbalance; and declining soil organic matter and soil productivity. The objectives of this paper are to estimate the crop residue burning and emissions from crop residue burning, to recommend interventions in crop residue management and to propose a crop residue management-bioeconomy model incorporating strategies to sustainably manage the crop residues through interventions that enable waste valorization, food and nutritional security, farmers’ livelihood and sustainable agricultural production system. A national inventory on crop residue burning including the pollutant species was prepared using the IPCC methodology. The crop types included for the estimation are cereals, pulses, oilseeds, sugarcane, cotton, jute and Mesta. The total amount of crop residues generated and burned for the year 2017–18 was estimated at 516 million tonnes and 116 million tonnes respectively. It is estimated that 116.3 Tg of crop residues burning released about 176.1 Tg of CO2, 10 Tg of CO, 313.9 Gg of CH4, 8.14 Gg of N2O, 151.14 Gg of NH3, 813.8 Gg of NMVOC, 453.4 Gg of PM2.5, and 935.9 Gg of PM10. The emission estimates can be a proxy to prepare the national level inventory of air pollutant species from crop residue burning. The crop residue management (CRM) demands a transition from the traditional zone of CRM to bioeconomy zone of CRM, wherein the interventions aim at the sustainability of agroecosystem. The proposed bioeconomy model has a four-pronged strategy that includes smart agriculture practices, waste bioeconomy involving aspirational principles of bioeconomy, capacity building of stakeholders’ and proactive government policy. Sustainable agricultural bioeconomy provides ample opportunities to reduce crop residue burning, increase farmers’ livelihood and decarbonize the agricultural production. India’s efforts and policies can provide lessons for other agricultural regions having similar environmental constraints.

Assessment of Bioenergy Generation Potential of Agricultural Crop Residues in India

“…Issues concerned with agricultural crop residues use are (a) crop residue burning, (b) transport and disposal constraints owing to the sheer volume of crop residues and (c) seasonal availability of crop residues. Crop residue burning in Northwestern India has become a regular feature [7] and a source of greenhouse gas emissions [8]. Crop residue burning is driven by factors like labour scarcity [9], short turn-around time [7], socio-economic constraints [10], ignorance of farmers towards public health issues [11,12] and low nutritive value of crop residues [13].…”

“…Crop residue burning is driven by factors like labour scarcity [9], short turn-around time [7], socio-economic constraints [10], ignorance of farmers towards public health issues [11,12] and low nutritive value of crop residues [13]. Crop residue burning causes loss of valuable soil nutrients [14], pollution episodes [8] and public health issues [15] [16]. To checkmate the crop residue burning and wasteful disposal of crop residues, the agricultural bioeconomy approach is emerging as a sustainable pathway in crop residue management.…”

“…To checkmate the crop residue burning and wasteful disposal of crop residues, the agricultural bioeconomy approach is emerging as a sustainable pathway in crop residue management. The agricultural bioeconomy approach in crop residue management enables integration of sustainable options which are "upscalable", "cropand region-specific", "socially inclusive", "environmentally sound" and "technically robust" [8,17]. Further, the agricultural bioeconomy involving efficient utilization of biomass and crop residue waste valourization aims at reducing greenhouse gases emissions and endeavours to achieve sustainable development goals [17,18].…”

“…Use of crop residues as feedstock for the generation of biofuel and bioenergy (SDG 7) provides economic and livelihood opportunities to farmers (SDG 1 Poverty reduction; SDG 2 Food and nutritional security). Further, paddy straw mushroom production provides employment opportunities to the farmers (SDG 8), particularly the women (SDG 5), which greatly improve the household food and nutrition security (SDG 2) [8].…”

“…Bioenergy generation is construed as a viable strategy in crop residue management on account of the factors like increasing generation of crop residues, growing need for renewable energy trajectory and decentralized power generation, and nexus between bioenergy generation and employment opportunities [5,8,19,20]. Bioenergy from crop residues is generated through technologies including but not limited to combustion, biomass gasification, pyrolysis, fermentation and anaerobic digestion [1,21].…”