Department of Economics, School of Business Administration, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
PLoS One. 2023 Dec 29;18(12):e0296059. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296059. eCollection 2023.
Postharvest crop residue burning (CRB) is a major policy issue in several developing countries because of harmful environmental and public health consequences. While the literature has extensively examined the reasons for rice CRB, much less is known about wheat residue management. This paper explores the drivers of CRB of wheat in India and relates it to farmers' prior decisions related to CRB of rice in the preceding season. Using primary data on residue management practices of 301 Indian farmers, whom we tracked over two consecutive harvests of rice (2018) and wheat (2019), we find that farmers are significantly more likely to burn wheat residue if they had previously burned rice residue. The possibility of this linkage or spillover increases the likelihood of wheat residue burning by 15.6 to 21 percent. Furthermore, farmers are undertaking wheat CRB despite the positive net benefit of choosing non-burning alternatives to manage crop residue. Our results suggest that ensuring well-functioning markets for crop residue, awareness campaigns, and recognition of spillover effects of residue management across crops over time can enable policies to promote pro-environmental postharvest choices.
收获后作物残茬燃烧（CRB）是几个发展中国家的一个主要政策问题，因为其对环境和公共健康造成了有害影响。尽管文献广泛研究了水稻 CRB 的原因，但对于小麦残茬管理的了解要少得多。本文探讨了印度小麦 CRB 的驱动因素，并将其与农民在前一个季节与水稻 CRB 相关的先前决策联系起来。利用我们在连续两个水稻（2018 年）和小麦（2019 年）收获季节跟踪的 301 名印度农民的残茬管理实践的主要数据，我们发现，如果农民之前焚烧过水稻残茬，他们焚烧小麦残茬的可能性就会大大增加。这种关联或溢出的可能性使小麦残茬燃烧的可能性增加了 15.6%至 21%。此外，尽管选择不燃烧来管理作物残茬的净收益为正，农民仍在进行小麦 CRB。我们的研究结果表明，确保作物残茬市场运作良好、开展宣传活动以及认识到随着时间的推移不同作物之间残茬管理的溢出效应，可以使政策能够促进有利于环境的收获后选择。
