padmeshgupta1
By Padmesh Gupta
In a recent times agricultural pollution has been in the news for wrong reasons. For instance the smog which has been covering our national capital post-harvest season is making the alarm bells ringing. This agricultural waste has started giving its contribution to pollution steadily, wherein farmers are using unscientific methods to dispose of their agricultural waste by activities such as dumping, burning etc.
Also, Government of India is forecasting a grave situation and has been bringing out various schemes to promote the same. Although the right steps have started getting its place through various government initiatives. India needs much more focus on implementing the same. Even though we cannot stop agricultural activity for mere reason of pollution, however we need to educate our farmers and make them realize the importance of waste and problems of burning and shift their focus from burning the agricultural wastes to making value additions to their waste by either making briquettes, pellets, bio gas, bio-fertilizers, etc. this would not only add some revenue to their pockets but would also help in growing the ecosystem considerably by reducing its dependence on chemical fertilizer, fossil fuel such as coal / oil etc.
India has been in the news for its green energy initiatives and has been the leaders in establishing solar and wind based power. It is pertinent to note that a country which ranks 2nd worldwide in-terms of farm output and where more than 50% of the workforce is directly or indirectly depended on for their livelihood also generates huge amounts of agricultural waste, hence has a huge unexplored potential for its contribution in energy sector through biomass based power projects. This would not only lead to sustainable development of our economy but would also support other renewable energy projects by giving continuous energy to our grids necessary for grid stabilization.