Trying To Protect Groundwater By Delaying Rice Planting Made N. India's Legendary Air Pollution Even Worse
BATHINDA, India — An Indian initiative to preserve vanishing groundwater by delaying the annual sowing of rice has led to a dramatic worsening of air pollution in New Delhi and the surrounding region, already infamous for its suffocating smog, according to farmers and researchers. And no one saw it coming.
For decades, farmers have burned the field stubble that remains after harvesting rice to prepare for the next crop. But when government officials ordered a delay in the summer sowing of rice in part of India by a few weeks to take advantage of the coming monsoon rain, they did not consider that India’s winds would have shifted by harvest time. Now, the harvest coincides with winter weather, and the winds blow the smoke across the plains of northern India.
The agricultural mandate, first adopted in 2008, has caused up to a 20 percent increase in smoke particles in northern Indian cities, including Delhi, according to a team of researchers from the United States, India and elsewhere. This week, Delhi’s poisonous air reached its worst level in five years. In response, the government shut down schools, construction and some offices. “The growing season for rice has shifted, and you would think that would be fine,” said Loretta Mickley, an atmospheric chemist at Harvard University. “The average person will say: What does groundwater have to do with air pollution in Delhi?”
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Despite the evidence, the government officer who drafted the law denies any impact on air pollution. “There is not even a single unintentional consequence from this law,” said Kahan Singh Pannu, Punjab’s former secretary of the agriculture department. He said the delay in sowing times has not delayed harvests because new rice varieties take less time to mature. If the winds are now carrying smoke over Delhi, it may be due to climate change, he said, not his law. Raised in a farming family, Pannu said he had grown alarmed by 2006 that Punjab’s water table was descending at an alarming speed. It took him a half hour to draft the law delaying the rice cultivation, he recalled, and the measure was steadily adopted over the following years.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/22/india-smog-haze-air-pollution/