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Plastic mulching on acres of farming land Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh Photograph: (Ground Report)
Kailash Pawar, a farmer from Bhutai village in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, has been cultivating vegetables in the traditional way for about 11 years with his family. He started cultivating strawberries on his 6-acre farm using plastic mulching film (sheets) from last year itself, he earned a lot of profit from it. That is why they are cultivating strawberries along with vegetables on their farm this year by covering the soil with plastic mulch.
"Plastic mulch is economical, reduces the cost of labour, pesticides and weedicides, and increases crop production," says Kailash.
In this fertile region of Madhya Pradesh, Kailash, along with other farmers, is rapidly adopting plastic mulching and drip irrigation techniques.
Along with the world, India's agriculture sector is also becoming increasingly green from plastic culture, Madhya Pradesh is also not untouched by this. Plasticulture has made its deep inroads into the agricultural sector with its use in applications such as mulch, shade nets, playhouses, irrigation pipes, pond liners, packaging and storage silos, etc. Now plastic has become an integral part of food production, processing, marketing and consumption. It has now started polluting food along with polluting soil, water and air.
Kailash joins the growing number of farmers who have started tightly covering plastic film (mulch) on the raised beds in the fields, eschewing biomass (organic) mulch and traditional weed removal methods. Mulching is used to prevent weed growth and evaporation and improve the microenvironment around the roots. It increases the production capacity but also works to affect the quality of soil.
Growth of plasticulture
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Plastic use in India's agricultural sector began in the 1980s and has spread rapidly in the last few years. Precision agriculture is done on 275,000 hectares of land across the country, out of which more than 90 per cent of land is covered with plastic mulch.
According to a Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) report released in 2021, agriculture used 12.5 million tonnes of plastic in 2019, and food packaging contributed 37.3 million tonnes globally, while the demand for agricultural plastics is projected to increase by 50% by 2030. Also, only five percent of the plastic used is recycled.
According to a report published in the journal Nature, India is the largest producer of plastic waste in the world. India generates 9.3 million tonnes of plastic waste every year. More than 50 percent of this plastic waste is from rural areas. Out of this total waste, only about 3.5 million tonnes is being processed, that too by adopting wrong methods, while 5.8 million tonnes of waste is being burnt in the open.
In the Indian Precision Agriculture and Plasticiculture Sector Post COVID-19 report of the Union Ministry of Agriculture, the agro-plastic industry estimates that the global demand for polyhouse, mulching and silo films, which was 6.1 million tonnes in 2018, will increase by 50% to 9.5 million tonnes in 2030.
Speaking to Ground Report, Indian agricultural scientists said that climate change is also one of the reasons behind the increasing plasticity in agriculture. Plastic farming techniques like mulching with drip irrigation (a technique to reduce water use in irrigation) help farmers in dealing with situations like heatwaves.
Plastic contains a complex mixture of more than 16,000 different chemicals, about a quarter of which are considered hazardous to human health. These chemicals have found their way into the food chain due to the increasing use of plastics in agriculture.
However, several studies have revealed that microplastics have been found in 83 percent of tap water samples in India, and they are also making their way into agricultural soil through contaminated irrigation water and waste sludge. This is a major threat to food security and soil health.
Despite this, the issue of plastic pollution in agriculture is being largely ignored. Even the Government of India is promoting plasticulture in food production by providing various schemes and subsidies, especially to increase horticulture production.
The situation in Madhya Pradesh
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In Madhya Pradesh too, plasticulture is being adopted to boost horticulture production. For this, a 50 percent subsidy is being given to the farmers cultivating greenhouses, shade houses, plastic mulching, plastic low tunnels, etc., as per the criteria set by the Integrated Horticulture Mission and National Committee on Plastic Culture Utilisation in Horticulture (NCPAH) in the "Protected Cultivation of Commercial Horticultural Crops Promotion Scheme" of the Central Government.
Under this scheme, the horticulture crops were extended to 79.59 hectares in the year 2021-22 in the state. A subsidy of Rs. 40.70 lakh has been extended to 5.467 hectares in 2022-23 and Rs. 185.296 lakh to 2.630 hectares in 2023-24 (March 2024).
Brijesh Sharma, regional director of the MP Pollution Control Board, said,
"One of the reasons behind the increasing pollution in rural areas is the use of fast-growing plastic in agriculture."
Hari Mohan Sharma, a vegetable farmer from Chaurai tehsil of Chhindwara district, says, They have been cultivating vegetables on 9 acres of land for 10 years. The change in weather was also making it difficult to recover costs. So now for the last two years, they have been cultivating through the plastic mulching technique.
To a question on the time frame and disposal of mulching sheets, Mohan says,
“The film (mulch) lasts only for 8 to 9 months. After use, we collect it and burn it or bury it in the ground."
Brijesh Sharma adds, "Efforts are being made to make villagers aware of plastic pollution. Awareness camps are being organised in this regard."
Under the Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016 in the state, 28139 awareness camps have been organised to make people aware of plastic pollution in the year 2023-24, while a fine of Rs. 73.71 lakh has been collected.
Effect on soil biology
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The number of farmers who are getting better production and earnings by resorting to plastic mulch in the state is increasing continuously, but some farmers have started traditional farming again due to the loss caused by this technology.
Omji Pandey, a farmer from Shyamgarh village in Mandsaur district, laments the day he began using mulching in his fields, saying that "everything is fine as long as the fields are covered with mulch.
" As soon as it is removed, the difficulties begin to increase. The fine particles of mulch break and get mixed in the soil and it does not allow the water to reach the bottom."
"These particles come out whenever the field is ploughed," he adds. I don't know how to separate them from the soil. "
A similar story is of Suraj Pratap Singh, a farmer from Shahdol district, who was also gardening with the plastic mulch technique till two years ago, but now he has thought it better to return to the old methods.
"Initially, the production of capsicum crops through mulch was more than doubled, but gradually there was a slight decrease in production," says Suraj. The biggest reason behind this is the health of the soil because being covered with plastic for a long time is affecting the quality of the soil.
Soumik Banerjee, a member of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), says,
"The mulching technique takes the soil away from nature, leaving it without an open environment. Because of this, there is a distributed effect on the flora and fauna in a particular area."
Dr Sanjay Arora, a soil scientist at the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSIR), says,
"With all the plasticulture techniques in agriculture, microplastics are getting mixed in the soil, which affects the bacteria or nutrients (which help in plant growth). Because it makes it difficult for bacteria to breathe, their respiration (the process of breathing and releasing) is weakened by plastic. "
The study, published in the journal Environmental Science Frontiers, also raised concerns that microplastics (particles smaller than 5 mm) increase the pH value of soil when they are mixed with soil, leading to a decrease in the presence of microorganisms in the soil.
"Many of the nutrients are absorbed on the surface of the polymer and are not available to the plant itself. Microplastic particles are very small, so heavy metals such as iron, glass, cobalt, etc., are released into the soil, and harmful elements get into the plant. Which are spoiling the health of humans through the food chain."
However, there is no specific data on how much of these heavy elements should be in the soil and how much can stay in the soil.
The road ahead and the challenges
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Increasing plasticity in agriculture is having a detrimental impact on biodiversity, soil health, ecosystems and human health. Still, why is plastic being promoted in the agriculture sector? In response to this question, agricultural scientists and soil scientists said that the plastic industries are constantly promoting through their studies how plastic increases yields, saves water, reduces the use of fertilisers, and cuts labour, while they have also created a strong lobby to influence the government.
He further says that
"it is not that work is not being done by the government for the prevention of plastic pollution, but on the one hand, the government bans single-use carry bags with a thickness of fewer than 120 microns, while giving a subsidy of 50 per cent on plastic mulch as thin as 15 to 30 microns."
JP Kolhekar, Deputy Director, MP Horticulture and Food Processing Department, says, "Continuous efforts are being made to promote horticulture and increase its production. There have been some complaints about the impact of the use of plastic mulch on soil health. A letter has been written to the government in this regard. "
"After getting approval from the government, farmers will be made aware of biodegradable mulch with the help of awareness camps so that they get information about its use and benefits and they can switch to biodegradable mulch instead of plastic mulch," he adds. "
One of the alternatives to the use of plastic mulching in agriculture is biodegradable mulch, which, while similar to traditional plastic mulch, benefits farmers and is also eco-friendly. Dr KVR Rao, principal scientist and expert in soil and water conservation engineering at the Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering (ICAER), Bhopal, says,
"Biodegradable mulch made from biomaterials has a low carbon footprint and can be composted when damaged, but it is less popular among farmers."
"The availability of these biodegradable plastic mulches in the markets is very low; besides, they are much thicker than the conventional plastic mulches, as well as they are expensive. That is why farmers are avoiding it. "
Bhanu Singh, a farmer who cultivates plastic mulch in Chhindwara, says, "A two-hectare field is covered with plastic mulch worth Rs 32 thousand, while if a 50 percent subsidy is received from the government, then its cost becomes Rs 16 thousand. At the same time, biodegradable mulch is very expensive, and there is no provision of subsidy on it."
"At the same time, mulch made by organic methods (dry leaves, straw, tree bark, etc.) only harms farmers because it creates more moisture in the soil and gives insects a place to sit, which increases the cost of pesticides and labour, so farmers have kept away from organic mulch culture," says Rao."
Scientists say that just one kilogram of plastic mulch is enough to cover 700 square meters of land and pollute it. Policy decisions have to be taken to promote innovative recycling techniques ranging from the use of biodegradable materials and organic farming practices if we have to save it from getting polluted. At the same time, these policy decisions should also be practical for the farmers so that their costs and labour do not increase, and they become popular among them.
Conclusion
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When plastic, microplastic, and nanoplastic pollution emerge as threats to food security, we need to avoid short-term schemes like Agri-Plastic Culture-based solutions because the challenge of recovering and recycling them is huge, while the pace at which plastic is being produced in the country is being recycled and processed in negligible amounts.
This is the reason that in the absence of better arrangements for plastic waste management, most farmers, including Kailash, burn or bury plastic mulch films after use. They are also unaware of what pollutants they are releasing into the air, water and soil through this process. Apart from this, this short-term plasticulture increases the capacity of crop production and proves to be beneficial for farmers.
The biggest challenge in getting rid of this plasticity is that farmers need behavioural solutions that benefit their crops and reduce their labour. That is why we have to make policy decisions; we cannot completely eliminate plastic from agriculture, but there is a need to avoid such short-term solutions that are emerging as a cause of polluting soil and food.
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