How Russia-Ukraine conflict and global rice trade played a role in reshaping Delhi’s air quality

The world has been navigating a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) phase for some time now. From the rivalry of the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to the US-China competition and most recently, the war in Ukraine that began in 2022, these upheavals have impacted global trade.

One of the most notable repercussions has been the volatile shifts in the food commodity market. Trade in wheat, maize, pulses and fertilisers has been severely disrupted, leading to widespread shortages and food inflation between 2022 and 2024. This has had a profound impact on most middle-income and poor countries. In response, the Indian government imposed a ban on rice exports to curb inflation, a decision that was reversed only recently.

Yet, not many have been able to understand the implications of this geo-political crisis and the shifts in the international food commodity market and trade for the deteriorating air quality of Delhi- National Capital Region and the larger northern India during the winter of 2024. How these shifts and geopolitical imbalances have restructured the cropping practices not only in India-Punjab but also across the border in Pakistan, exacerbating crop stubble burning and contributing to the regional air pollution is intriguing.

The agri-economic landscape

Export-quality rice is predominantly grown in regions that have historically not been rice-growing areas, such as Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh in India. The Green Revolution in northwestern India increased the use of groundwater for irrigation in these areas. The tube-well-fed irrigated fields of the northwest region grow the best quality Basmati and other varieties of rice, accounting for over 70 per cent exports of the world’s basmati.

Neighbouring Pakistan’s Punjab province also grows basmati, relying on its extensive traditional canal-fed irrigation system — a legacy of the Partition that left Pakistan with the world’s largest canal network. Pakistan contributes around 17 per cent of global Basmati trade.

These dynamics illustrate the implicit connection between international trade, rice production and air quality issues in northwestern India.

The India story

Several factors contribute to the widespread crop residue burning in Punjab and northern India during the harvest season in November and early December. Firstly, the use of mechanised harvesters leaves behind a few inches of the crop stubble that is difficult and labour-intensive to remove manually. Burning the stubble becomes a quicker and cost-effective solution to prepare fields for the next Rabi crop within the tight sowing window.

Rabi crops have always been the mainstay of this region, taking precedence over others. Farmers face a difficult task because they have a very limited time frame to sow the Rabi crops.

Another reason is that Basmati rice residue, unlike wheat stubble, is unsuitable as fodder for bovines due to its high silica content, leaving farmers with limited disposal options.

Furthermore, the grain of the Basmati is long; the 1121 Sella Basmati variety is the longest and most popular globally. Known as the Pusa (hybrid 1121 ICAR) variety, the residue of this paddy has an average stalk size of 130 centimetres that is left on the farm fields. This stalk is longer and harder to cut or uproot than a traditional paddy. The Basmati stalk requires more labour and costs to remove.

Fourthly, sowing of the Rabi crop warrants clearance of all crop residues at the earliest. This requires more labour to destalk the fields. But farming in Punjab has witnessed a structural shift in the character of the labour force. Since the late 1980s, the traditional hard-working Punjabi farmers are increasingly preferring to employ daily or contractual cheap labour coming from Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal. 

At the same time, the agro-economic boom, the abundance of agriculture-led prosperity and to some extent deepening of  social maladies such as drug abuse among the youth, have increased demand for subcontracted labour. Particularly, after the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of improved benefit schemes for individuals by the state and central Governments, a lot of the traditional migrant labour has not returned to the fields of Punjab, making stubble burning the least effort-intensive option.

Fifthly, Basmati is sown during the months of June-July. This Kharif Basmati is a water intensive crop that demands a lot of ground water for irrigation. Due to the depleting ground water levels over the years, the state government has imposed legal restrictions on the usage of groundwater for irrigation before the onset of the monsoon. 

This is further complicated by the delayed arrival of monsoons as noticed of late due to the effects of climate change. This delays the sowing of the Basmati crop, which further squeezes the window for clearing the fields for the next Rabi crop. This compels the farmers to burn the stalk residues for quick disposal as there is little time left to clear the fields.

Sixthly, as this region is not a traditionally rice-growing area, the rice varieties grown are vulnerable to rampant pest attack. Furthermore, during the Green Revolution, Indian agriculture evolved into an industrial system of agri-farming. Modern methods and technology, such as high-yielding variety seeds, tractors, irrigation systems, pesticides and fertilisers, were widely used.

Today, Punjab has emerged as the pesticide and fertiliser capital of the country. The cost of fertiliser has risen worldwide, with Russia becoming the largest exporter, having to cut down exports due to the sanctions. Due to the Russia-Ukraine war and the sanctions on Russia, the movement of fertilisers and pesticides from the Black Sea is severely impacted. This has increased the costs of pesticides and fertilisers, especially in India. 

The rising costs of these agricultural inputs have fuelled the traditional practice of post-harvest crop residue burning, as farmers continue to believe that burning replenishes field nutrients and eliminates pests.

Regardless of state government-supported awareness campaigns, the average farmer in the region is not fully aware of the negative effects of crop burning. This practice depletes soil nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, increasing the use of imported chemical fertilisers, which have become more expensive due to the Ukraine war.

Nonetheless, to prevent crop residue burning, the Government of India has launched a crop residue management scheme that supports and encourages the use of machines for residue management. These machines mix the stubble with the soil and mulch it. This increases the organic matter and nutrients in the soil. This is an in-situ approach to solving the problem.

The government is also funding projects (via the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare’s Agri-Infrastructure Fund) to recycle crop residue waste in order to add value and create new products, as well as generate electricity from it. This approach helps create value for the stalk residue, which was being burnt otherwise. Furthermore, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, among other things, promotes preventive measures to control stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana through the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).

However, as the classic story goes, subsidy-purchased equipment is largely underutilised. Most of the machines are in the hands of large farmers, who have reaped the majority of the benefits from government schemes, while the small and medium farmers do not have adequate and timely access to these avenues and machines. 

Even though the government runs a rental scheme for farmers, as previously stated, the economic stress on agriculture makes access to these solutions prohibitively expensive for the majority of small and medium farmers in the region. The deployment of these mechanised implements to uproot the long and hardy stalks of paddy crop is prohibitively expensive and their use is thought to increase production costs. It is claimed that this has made rice prices uncompetitive for farmers.

As a result, studies from various think tanks suggest that Punjab’s medium and small farmers, who are already dealing with the double whammy of rising costs, are unable to fully optimise and maximise the benefits of government support programmes. This, combined with a lack of affordable migrant labour, left farmers with no choice but to burn crop residues even in 2024.

An additional challenge is that Punjab’s small and medium farmers prefer to grow fast-growing Pusa 44 rice varieties, despite it being banned by the Punjab government. This rice variety produces significantly more stalk and residue, which is a problem. Burning the residue remains the fastest and cheapest method of disposal for farmers.

The Government of India and the Punjab government have made several efforts and their preemptive measures and interventions have yielded results. Data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite satellite of the US’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration on crop fire incidents shows a reduction in fire count over the last few years. Punjab has seen significant improvement, with a 75 per cent reduction in residue burning incidents (from 33,737 in 2023 to 8,391 in 2024).

It is also worth noting that the ban or restrictions on Basmati exports in 2023 resulted in only a marginal increase in the area under rice cultivation in Punjab, from 3.18 million hectares to 3.2 million hectares in 2024, with little change in Basmati acreage.

The cross-border impact

The emerging evidence shows that as rice exports from India slowed, farmers in Pakistan-Punjab increased rice production and exports to fill the void. According to a December 2024 report by trading corporation S&P Global, Pakistan’s rice exports nearly doubled during 2023-24, driven by an abundant harvest, India’s export ban, competitive pricing and increased demand from other countries. This is expected to change, as India recently lifted its export ban.

According to US Department of Agriculture data, between 2019-20 and 2023-24, Pakistan’s rice area increased by 15 per cent on average. This is likely to increase crop residue burning, which is also used to dispose of agricultural waste in Pakistan. Pakistan’s farmers were widely reported to have burned stalk residue in October 2024.

Even though the Punjab Government in Pakistan has introduced several policies and regulations concerning air quality and crop burning and has prohibited crop burning, implementation has been a challenge in the present turbulent times. News agency Reuters reported that in October-November 2024, the smog control programme offers 65 per cent subsidies for ‘super seeder’ machines, as well as penalties ranging from $170 to $250. 

However, the implementation of these measures was insignificant. It has been reported that widespread indifference and a lack of alternatives have exacerbated the situation. Thus, the wind would normally carry the fumes eastward into the Indian Punjab and Haryana plains.

It is further evident that during late October and early November 2024, the upper tropical westerly jetstream had weakened and moved northwards of the Pakistan Punjab airspace. This caused the smoke from these fires to remain saturated within Pakistan’s airshed. As a result, Pakistan cities like Lahore and Multan were reeling and gasping for clean air in October-November 2024. They became the most polluted cities in the world with air quality levels of 1,914 (with anything above an AQI level of 300 being considered the worst category of ‘hazardous’).

It is in this context that there is now a growing interest in developing a larger regional framework for air quality management. The World Bank has already assessed this problem of transboundary movement of air pollution in South Asia and has brought in their Air Quality Management Program for the Indo-Gangetic Plain in 2023.

The funnel action of winds into Delhi-NCR

By the third week of November in 2024, the wind pattern resumed its usual path, bringing the fumes and pollution into India. This was further compounded by the burning of crop residue by some of our own farmers in Punjab. The smoke and the fumes blew through the usual path of the Potwar plateau and Northern Aravalli ridge into Delhi.

Interestingly, the Potwar plateau and the northern ridge of the Aravallis (the Delhi Ridge) form an orifice that acts similar to a compressed nozzle of a watering pipe that is used in any garden. The narrowed mouth (orifice) accelerates the flow into a narrow area. The funnel action between this geographical orifice has always brought in the winds from north-western parts into Delhi in an accelerated manner. This time, smoke from Pakistan and India Punjab poured in, exacerbating the already poor air quality in Delhi-NCR.

The problem has become further compounded by the reduction in tree cover in the region that acted as a green barrier and a bio fence of tree lines that could break the wind flow from northwest India into Delhi.

The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune estimates that farm fires can contribute up to 35 per cent of Delhi’s daily air quality on certain days in early November, peaking at nearly 40 per cent on a few days in November 2024. Delhi started choking like never before, and the pollution control authorities could respond only with emergency action under the graded response action plans (GRAP). 

Despite GRAP’s preventive measures, Delhi bore the brunt of the fumes, which pounded the city relentlessly, this time caused by cross-border farm fires.

Who would have imagined that Western sanctions and actions against Russia, as well as the restructuring of the international rice trade, would impact Delhi’s air quality so much? The food inflation caused by the Russian-Ukraine conflict, which resulted in India (the world’s largest rice exporter) prohibiting rice exports, would impact cropping patterns and crop residue burning throughout the South Asia region. This demonstrates how inaction in one area of our planet can have a disproportionately negative impact on another.

This makes a compelling case for a more unified, coordinated and integrated response to clean air action in South Asia. We need to re-evaluate all aspects and perspectives for accelerating clean air action in our global world, or should we say, “...in this Glocal (Global plus Local) World of ours.”

Abhinav Chandra is IAS, secretary for department of environment, West Bengal government

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth