IMPACT OF Agricultural Subsidies ON Air Pollution
What is the issue?
Our current system of subsidies is a big reason for air pollution.
So, some changes could be made in the subsidies of the power, fertilizer and procurement fronts.
What is the situation?
People in Delhi and Indo-Gangetic Plain are choking due to air pollution.
As winter dawns, the wind slows, temperatures drop, and suspended particulate matter (PM) accumulates.
The high pollution in Delhi and its surrounding is due to the congested traffic, dust, construction, waste
burning, etc,
It gets a top-up from paddy-stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh.
What contributes to air pollution?
Agriculture’s contribution to air pollution runs even deeper than what happens between crop seasons.
Atmospheric ammonia comes from fertiliser use, animal husbandry, and other agricultural practices.
This combined with emissions from power plants, transportation, and other fossil fuel burning form fine
particles.
Agriculture is a victim of pollution as well as a perpetrator.
Particulate matter and ground-level ozone (from industrial, power plant, and transportation emissions among others) cause losses in crop yields.
Ozone damages plant cells, handicapping photosynthesis, while particulate matter dims the sunlight that
reaches crops.
What is the irony?
The irony of agricultural pollution is that taxpayers are essentially paying for it through a system of subsidies.
These subsidies motivate the very behaviors that drive the agricultural emissions that the taxpayers breathe.
How does subsidy contribute to air pollution?
Free power - hence ―free‖ water, pumped from the ground - is a big part of what makes growing rice in these areas attractive.
Open-ended procurement of paddy, in spite of bulging stocks of grains with the Food Corporation of
India, adds to the incentives.
Subsidies account for almost 15% of the value of rice being produced in Punjab-Haryana belt.
Fertiliser, particularly urea in granular form, is highly subsidised.
Urea is one of the cheapest forms of nitrogen-based fertiliser, but it is also one of the first to release ammonia
into the air.
This loss of nitrogen leads to a cycle of more and more fertiliser being applied to get the intended benefits for
crops.
What could be done?
An important element to correct in the policy matrix is the policy of subsidies on power, fertilisers and
procurement.
The nature of support to farmers should be shifted from input subsidies to investment subsidies.
A diversification package, equally contributed by the Centre and states, may be done to reduce agricultural
pollution.
The approach to diversification has to be demand-led, with a holistic framework of value chain, and not just
focused on production.
On the fertiliser front, instead of massive subsidisation of urea, the farmers could be given an input subsidy
in cash on per hectare basis.
Government procurement of paddy from farmers burning stubble in their fields may also be restricted.
Taken together, these measures could double farmers‘ incomes, promote efficiency in resource use, and reduce
pollution.
Released norms on NOx Emissions
NOx or Oxides of nitrogen are a criteria pollutant emitted on burning coal.
NOx is harmful, it also triggers the formation of ground level ozone and leads to secondary particulate matter worsening health risks and needs to be controlled.
Coal-based power plants, besides the transport sector, are a major source of this pollutant.
There were no limits placed to control emissions of NOx from power plants before 2015.
The MoEF&CC introduced limits of 300 mg / Nm3.
Recently Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has relaxed NOx emission
norms.
It has been relaxed to 450 mg / Nm3, from 300 mg / Nm3, for power stations commissioned between 2003
and 2015.
The relaxations were brought about as the power sector strongly lobbied watering down the norms, alleging it was not possible to meet the 300 mg / Nm3 standard at all loads.
Boiler companies assured government that a NOx emission level of 450 mg / Nm3 can be achieved by combustion modification.
To meet emissions below it would mean installation of slightly expensive pollution control equipment like
selective non-catalytic reactors (SNCR) will be required.
Human Emissions of Nitrous Oxide
According to recent findings Human emissions of
nitrous oxide (N2O) increased by 30 per cent between
1980 and 2016.
Its global concentration levels increased from 270 parts
per billion (ppb) in 1750 to 331 ppb in 2018, a jump of
20 per cent.
The growth has been the quickest in the past five
decades because of human emissions.
It has also found that a major proportion of the N2O
emissions in the last four decades came from the
agricultural sector, mainly because of the use nitrogen-
based fertilisers.
Most N2O emissions have come from emergin