Open burning of crop residues in India is a serious issue that not only impacts human health but is also detrimental to soil health in the long term. According to the estimates from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, about 500 million tonnes of crop residues are generated annually. While a portion of these residues is used for various purposes, a larger portion is burnt in the fields. The p...

The Policy Brief discusses why gender matters in the context of sustainable agricultural mechanization, what key barriers women face in the adoption and scaling-up of mechanization-based solutions and how the gender dimension can be better integrated into programmes and strategies for sustainable agricultural mechanization in the Asia-Pacific region....

Agriculture remains the backbone of national economy in most developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Agriculture is not only the producer of food and but also employer of approximately 60% of the working population in this region, according to ESCAP’s survey in 2013. However, achieving and ensuring sustained food security in the region remains a challenge. In recent years, countries acros...

Burning rice stubble is a common practice for millions of farmers across the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Though burning represents a low input, cost-effective strategy of crop residue management (CRM), it produces harmful air pollution, and it releases greenhouse gasses. Large-scale transition to no-burn CRM in northwest India will require social and technological change. Authors analyze data from 60 fo...

Crop residue burning in Indian Punjab emits particulate matter with detrimental impacts on health, climate and that threaten agricultural production. Though legal and technological barriers to residue burning exist – and alternatives considered more profitable to farmers – residue burning continues. Authors review black carbon (BC) emissions from residue burning in Punjab, analyse social-ecologica...

Crop Residue Burning (CRB) is a major contributor to air pollution in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) region during winter months, particularly in October and November. Satellite-based active fire counts and burnt area are two widely used remote sensing metrics to monitor CRB. However, these methods have some limitations. Coarser spatial and temporal resolutions, as well as obstructions due to smoke...

The Union government released the latest version of the Crop Residue Management Operational Guidelines in March 2024 to promote better stubble management, especially in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. The government has been periodically updating these guidelines since they were first introduced after the launch of th...

India is projected to be the fastest-growing bioenergy market in the world between 2023 and 2030, accounting for 35 per cent of the global demand (Moorhouse and Báscones 2025). India has already set several blending targets—like 5 per cent compressed biogas blending requirement by 2028–29, 7 per cent of biomass cofiring in power plants by 2026, 20 per cent ethanol by 2025–26 and 5 per cent biodies...

Indian rice straw residues can be made into profitable resources with the required infrastructure investments.Agricultural waste burning is one of the world largest sources of seasonal air pollution. In India’s Punjab province, 15.4 million tonnes of rice straw are burnt after each crop harvest. Globally around 450 million tonnes of crop residues are burnt each year resulting in 1.2 million tonnes...

Stubble burning has met its answer, and it’s microbial. A cocktail of seven fungi developed by scientists from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi provide a welcome alternative to the stubble burning that happens every year after harvest. Farmers burn the leftover stacks to clear the soil and fight pests and weeds, but the practice can contribute up to 40% of local pollu...