The Only Solution to Burning Fields

The Supreme Court mandated a judicial solution, the Central Government responded with a legal one. The Supreme Court asked the independent-minded Justice Madan Lokur to head a panel to stop crop burning while the Central Government desires a full-blown law. Both want to punish the farmer for burning straw on their field. Both are wrong either morally or practically. And therefore, both solutions will not work. 

If incentives can motivate the farmer to take better actions, then there is no need to threaten them with a punishment. And therefore, the current statement of the government reflects a disinclination to find an economic solution.

Why does a farmer burn rice-straw-stubble? First, it is risky for the farmer not to burn straw. Delay in sowing will expose a relatively young wheat plant to the winter chill. Second, it is very cheap and fairly effortless to burn the stubble and straw. You don’t need to organize and spend on labour to clear the field. And third, straw from hybrid rice and wheat has few uses and no value for the modern farmer. It is therefore not only important but critical, for the farmer to burn the rice-straw.

The central government has told the Supreme Court that it is coming up with a law to stop crop burning. But why would it do that? In the economic domain, law or regulation only needs to come in where the price mechanism fails. Perhaps the government has realized that the market for straw cannot be created artificially. And subsidizing the farmer or industry to use straw for other purposes may even create a greater problem than the one it is trying to solve.  

Many price-based solutions have been suggested and tried out such as the purchase of straw from farmers by industry or power plants, or reducing farmer’s cost of disposing straw, etc. But they are not really working well from what information is available. Why? Because straw is an inferior input for paper or board, power plant combustion, manure, etc. That is why markets did not develop for the sale and purchase of rice-straw in the first place. Take for example use in coal power plants. The central government could not even get the public sector NTPC excited about using straw in its coal power plants. It does use some, has announced such an initiative, but all have been half-hearted as if it was being done more to show than to achieve the objective of reducing farm-based straw burning.  

If we price straw artificially high industry would prefer to use other inputs rather than rice-straw. If the price is low, the farmer would prefer to burn it. But there is no ideal middle point, what is too high for the industry is too low for the farmer. Moreover, if we reward the farmer for not burning rice straw, he would prefer to grow more rice and benefit more from the reward. And if monitoring and punishments are not strong enough, it may even lead to increased rice production and crop burning. And so, since rewarding for not burning is expensive and may worsen the problem, punishing the farmer for burning straw might appear to be the only solution left.  

But most are apprehensive that even if such a law came about it would be extremely difficult to implement. Neither does the state have the capacity for that, nor would India’s political economy allow it. The problem is rice and wheat are grown across India and straw burning occurs from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu. Which government would want to risk the combined ire of hundreds of thousands of farmers across India? The politician is certainly more aware than experts on political-economic matters and therefore the solution of law against crop burning is simply a fudge since it won’t, rather can’t, be implemented. But admittedly it would buy time against growing pressure from the middle classes, civil society and the judiciary.

Wheat and rice-straw burning has become integrated into India’s agricultural ecosystem, they will not go away easily or soon. Banning and punishing straw burning is not a politically viable option. Using the price mechanism to find other uses for straw is not an economically viable option. Like most environmental problems, here as well, the solution is not tactical but strategic and needs to be driven from the PMO.   

Image: Balu, Flickr

The government/courts have been unable to find a workable economic solution and are now looking at legal ones. Both are mistaken in their approach. They are embroiled in the tactical space whereas the solution lies in a strategic one. The superior solution is to make farming of other agriculture commodities more attractive than rice. This for instance could be possible by buying lesser and lesser rice and more and more millets (jowar, bajra, ragi etc.) every year through the Food Corporation of India. Announce that over a 5 year period the MSP growth would be more for other crops than rice. You don’t need to do it now, let the farmer know that in years to come, the support for rice will reduce and that to other crops will increase. There are a few other tools of a strategically driven initiative and that is how the government needs to think.

But government bureaucracy (like corporate middle management) is typically averse to strong strategic plays. For them, tactical solutions are safer, as they don’t meddle with the status quo. The Green Revolution was one such strategic play. It changed India’s dependence on foreign food aid within five years and is still having its ripple effects across the country.  This, therefore, would be a systemic decision, nor the Secretary of the Environment Ministry, or of Agriculture can take it, nor can the Supreme Court, or for that matter, the Chief Minister of a state take such a decision. All of those would probably be involved but for all of them to coordinate without a central focal point driving it is going to be impossible.

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References:

Stubble burning: SC keeps in abeyance its Oct 16 order appointing Justice M B Lokur panel, The Times of India, October 26, 2020

The biofuel alternative to farm fires, Financial Express, October 27, 2020