ANNOUNCEMENTS
The rice-wheat cropping system practised extensively in the states of Punjab and Haryana has a huge environmental footprint associated with it. The generation of huge amount of crop residue after the harvesting of rice crop has been majorly managed by burning it on the field during winters. This has caused severe air pollution problems and has negatively impacted the public health of both the residents of the state as well as that of neighbouring states, including Delhi. Thus, various alternatives like ex-situ and in-situ management of crop residue practised by farmers in the above mentioned states has been studied in a life cycle perspective. While ex-situ method refers to shipping the generated residue out of the fields to be managed by industries for energy production, in-situ refers to the practice of mulching or incorporating the residue back into the same soil using machines before the sowing of the successive crops. The data regarding all the inputs applied to the field in terms of its quantities and associated costs were collected through surveys with individual farmers, aggregators and businessmen in the selected areas of Punjab and Haryana. A life cycle analysis of the various residue utilisation strategies for the complete rice-wheat cropping system using a cradle to grave approach was done. The greenhouse gas emissions associated with all the stages in the selected system boundary by each alternative was calculated. The carbon footprint associated with burning the rice residue was the highest among the three techniques followed. Among in-situ and ex-situ methods, the in-situ method resulted in higher carbon emissions for the sampled dataset (farmers practicing it from 3-4 years). However, emissions from the in-situ method for farmers practicing it from more than 10 years is much lower than ex-situ method due to absence of usage of chemical fertilisers.
