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Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2022

Unlocking the unsustainable rice-wheat system of Indian Punjab: Assessing alternatives to crop-residue burning from a systems perspective

Downing, Andrea S.; Kumar, Manish; Andersson, August; Causevic, Amar; Gustafsson, Örjan; Joshi, Niraj U.; Krishnamurthy, Chandra; Scholtens, Bert; Crona, Beatrice

Abstract

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. We review black carbon (BC) emissions from residue burning in Punjab, analyse social-ecological processes driving residue burning, and rice and wheat value-chains. Our aims are to a) understand system feedbacks driving agricultural practices in Punjab; b) identify systemic effects of alternatives to residue burning and c) identify companies and financial actors investing in agricultural production in Punjab. We find feedbacks locking the system into crop residue burning. The Government of India has greatest financial leverage and risk in the current system. Corporate stakeholders have little financial incentive to enact change, but sufficient stakes in the value chains to influence change. Agricultural policy changes are necessary to reduce harmful impacts of current practices, but insufficient to bringing about sustainability. Transformative changes will require crop diversification, circular business models and green financing. Intermediating financial institutions setting sustainability conditions on loans could leverage these changes. Sustainability requires the systems perspective we provide, to reconnect production with demand and with supporting environmental conditions.

Keywords

Crop residue burning; Black carbon emissions; Atmospheric Brown Cloud; Value chain analysis; Causal loop diagrams; Lock-in

Published in

Ecological Economics
2022, volume: 195, article number: 107364

Authors' information

Downing, Andrea S.
Stockholm University
Kumar, Manish
Stockholm University
Andersson, August
Stockholm University
Causevic, Amar
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Gustafsson, Örjan
Stockholm University
Joshi, Niraj U.
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Economics
Scholtens, Bert
University of St Andrews
Crona, Beatrice
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science

Publication Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107364

URI (permanent link to this page)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/116446