Tag: agricultural intensification

Ammonia Hotspot Trends in India – First-time observations from India

Indo-Gangetic Plain an atmospheric ammonia hotspot but India’s overall trends look promising

Agro fertilizers containing high levels of ammonia have long been designated as a hazardous material for human health. For the first time in India, the seasonal and inter-annual variability of atmospheric ammonia emitted by the agricultural sector has been analyzed by researchers from IIT Kharagpur in collaboration with IITM Pune and European researchers. And the results are in agreement with the long-held apprehension of global environmentalists – the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) is indeed the global hot-spot of atmospheric ammonia (NH3) due to intense agricultural activities and fertilizer production there. 

Using IASI satellite measurements to analyze the seasonal and inter-annual variability of atmospheric NH3 over India for the period 2008–2016, the researchers observed atmospheric ammonia growing rapidly at a rate of 0.08% annually during the summer-monsoon (Kharif crop period) season from June to August. The study further confirmed a direct correlation between NH3 emissions and fire counts and reports a high volume of atmospheric ammonia in the same season. They delineated the data for global industrial, agricultural, and natural NH3 hotspots.

“The satellite data we collected for agricultural emissions show a positive correlation of atmospheric ammonia with total fertilizer consumption and temperature since high temperature favours volatilization and is negatively correlated with total precipitation as wet deposition helps removal of atmospheric ammonia,” explained Prof. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath from IIT Kharagpur’s Centre for Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere. 

Atmospheric ammonia is typically generated due to agricultural activities including the use of nitrogenous fertilizers, manure management, soil and water management practices and animal husbandry. It is very dynamic as it is constantly exchanged between the atmosphere and biosphere. In India, there has been a lack of detailed information about atmospheric ammonia, which is a significant contributor to atmospheric pollution and deterioration of air quality. This is particularly important for IGP as there are many cities including New Delhi.

This study titled “Record high levels of atmospheric ammonia over India: Spatial and temporal analyses” and published recently in Elsevier journal “Science of the Total Environment”, is pioneering research from India in measuring the dynamics of atmospheric ammonia over the region and validated the data supporting India’s commitment to reduce atmospheric pollution and development of global pollution control initiatives. Apart from IGP, data from across the country show some regional hotspots in northwest and southeast India. The study also mentions that there are positive trends in atmospheric NH3 over the agricultural areas of the United States, China and Europe, about 1.8–2.61% annually, depending on regions. However, the general trend in atmospheric ammonia over India is negative in most seasons.

“Observing the overall trend, we can therefore assert to being sincere to our pledge at the Paris Climate Summit towards reducing atmospheric emissions through initiatives under the National Clean Air Programme though we have to be relentless in our efforts to reduce the emissions at the Indo Gangetic Plain, which would otherwise have detrimental effects on the human health, ecosystems and climate,” added Prof. Kuttippurath.

Deliberating on possible remedies co-authors Mr. Ajay Singh and Prof. Nirupama Mallick from the IIT Kharagpur’s Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering emphasized the wider adoption of precision farming along with seasonal restrictions on the use of fertilizers.

“Agriculture, in its conventional form, contributes significantly to the atmospheric emission of gaseous ammonia that plays a key role in the deterioration of air quality over the whole of India by actively contributing to the formation of secondary aerosols. This demands regulations on the amount of fertilizer application in cropping seasons in arable lands, in place of conventional blanket recommendation practices, along with viable strategies to curb farm emissions” remarked Prof. Nirupama Mallick from the Dept. of AGFE.

Citation: J. Kuttippurath, A. Singh, S.P. Dash, N. Mallick, C. Clerbaux, M. Van Damme, L. Clarisse, P.-F. Coheur, S. Raj, K. Abbhishek, H. Varikoden, Record high levels of atmospheric ammonia over India: Spatial and temporal analyses, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 740, 2020, 139986, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139986.

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Contact:

Research: Dr. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath, Assistant Professor, Centre for Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere and Land Sciences (CORAL), IIT Kharagpur, Email: jayan@coral.iitkgp.ac.in

Media: Shreyoshi Ghosh, Executive Officer (Media & Communication), IIT Kharagpur, Email: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

For news and information please visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in

Follow IIT Kharagpur on social media: Facebook: @IITKgp     Twitter: @IITKgp    Instagram: @iit.kgp  

Transforming Rural Economies

COVID-19 has given a clarion call for a technology-enabled world, more so in the context of the Indian rural sector which has always stayed several steps behind the urban way of living. The slow progress could be attributed to not just lack of financial resources but also towards weak communication of functional knowledge, for a large population lacking literacy (M: 80.9%, F: 64.6%), and reliance on western technologies failing to cater to the requirements of the rural population of India. Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have come forward to bridge this gap by rolling out farming technologies as well as non-farming technologies for rural employment. 

Talking about this initiative, Director, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Virendra Tewari said,

“The Government of India offers huge subsidies for mechanization of the rural sector, but the farm machinery sector has not invested significantly in creating a market for indigenous technologies  addressing the burning need of the Indian rural sector.  Experts at IIT Kharagpur are answering this challenge by designing technologies well suited for the livelihood of the rural class of our country.”

The Institute, through its Precision Farming Development Centre, Farm Implements and Machinery and Rural Technology Action Group projects, has developed and deployed farm machinery including ranging from micro-irrigation, combined harvester, crop and vegetable planters, solar energy operated transplanters, groundnut diggers, ultrasonic sprayers. Further non-farming livelihood technologies for rural small-scale and cottage industries have been mechanized. To name a few, Dhenki, Potter Wheel, Jute Rope making, Door Mat making, Amber Charkha, Rice Flaking. The initiative also includes social impact technologies such as Smokeless Chullahs, Rural Drinking Water Facility. 

Prof Kamlesh Tiwari, one of the lead researchers in this program confirmed the training of around 2500 farmers from nearby villages of West Bengal and Odisha in micro-irrigation and protected cultivation structures. Several farmers who adopted these farm machinery and farm equipment reported a decrease in labor cost, reduction in the cost of cultivation, timeliness operations, improvement in pulverization, increase in soil fertility and production. Mr. Karthik Maity, from Hurnal village of Purba Medinipur and Subratha Mahesh from the Gurgram village of Paschim Medinipur, expressed their delight over their enhanced yield due to the technologies they adopted and the increased profits. 

Further, outreach programs were organized by the Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering and the Rural Development Centre to communicate, train rural people and help their transition to mechanized farming and livelihoods. IIT Kharagpur has extensively mobilized the funding available under national mission projects like ‘National Initiative for Design Innovation’ and ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’ towards achieving this goal. 

“We are ensuring the technologies are being implemented either in their farms or being adopted to generate employment through startups, setting up self-help groups. The livelihood technology adoption program witnessed significant acceptance in three North Eastern states including Assam, Manipur, Tripura as well as in several districts of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu,”  Prof. Kamlesh Tiwari said.

Earlier this year, the India Brand Equity Foundation, an initiative of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, had estimated the gross value to be added by the rural sector, including agriculture, forestry and fishing, at ₹20 trillion approximately with a dominant employment share of 58%. Also, in May, the Finance Ministry had announced an economic stimulus of ₹1.5 trillion to boost agricultural infrastructure and logistics and ₹400 billion was allocated for the rural employment guarantee scheme. Referring to this Director, Prof. Virendra Tewari further emphasized on the strategic importance of such technology development.

He remarked, “While India is moving at an accelerated pace towards digitization, there is a crucial need to complement it with automation in the rural livelihood and farming sector and warrant a uniform progress. Such transition in rural livelihood will not only increase productivity and earnings manifold but will also lead to capacity building for rural and cottage industries, improved product quality, increased employment, and entrepreneurship opportunities in rural areas.” 

Media Coverage:

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Contacts:

Project Information: Prof. Kamlesh N Tiwari, kamlesh@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in;

Institute Related: Prof. B N Singh, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in; 

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in; More News:: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/; 

Follow IIT Kharagpur on Social Media: Facebook:@IIT.Kgp; Twitter: @IITKgp; Instagram: @iit.kgp

New ways of using science

How important is the skill of listening in research? Plenty. Anyone who attended this week’s International dissemination workshop on ‘Qualitative methods for Research in Socially Inclusive and Sustainable Agricultural Intensification’, organized by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of IIT Kharagpur, could not have missed this obvious conclusion.

The workshop was part of the ongoing research project – “Promoting Socially Inclusive and Sustainable Agricultural Intensification in West Bengal and Bangladesh” or ‘SIAGI’ – sponsored by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Government of Australia.

Director, IIT KGP, talking to Prof. Christian Roth (right) of CSIRO

But the SIAGI team, drawn from Australia, India and Bangladesh (IIT Kharagpur is an integral part of it), attached a rider. It could not be just listening. It had to be what they called ‘ethical community engagement’ or ECE.

ECE is an overarching engagement strategy that the SIAGI team has developed in order to explore and understand how agricultural intensification affects disadvantaged rural communities in villages of West Bengal and Bangladesh, and how it can enable these people to access the benefits of agricultural intensification.

Some of the other key methods and concepts used by SIAGI, such as Theory of Change, Bio-economic modelling, Integrated Assessment Framework for Evaluating Interventions, Inclusive Agricultural Value Chains, Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture and Social Empowerment, were also introduced to the participants of the workshop by speakers from CSIRO (Dr. Christian Roth, Dr. Lilly Lim-Camacho, Dr. Lucy Carter, Dr. Uday Nidumolu), Australian National University (Dr. Wendy Merritt) and Livelihoods and Natural Resources Management Institute (Dr. V. Ratna Reddy).

But it is ECE that clearly lies at the heart of the SIAGI project, and it is ECE that informs the other concepts in SIAGI’s operational framework. The research project has also adopted another unique approach of disseminating the research outcomes to the academia, policy makers and government agencies and community based organizations.

Prof. Roth taking a question from Prof. Jenia Mukherjee, a participant at the workshop

Ms. Michaela Cosjin of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO, Australia), which is the lead agency of SIAGI, explained ECE while talking about “Community Engagement and Changing Approach to Collection of Primary Data”: “In SIAGI, we have used a participatory approach. This builds on an approach developed in the late 1980s and we pushed it further so that it is much more based on the ethical principles of respect, dignity, inclusion and ensuring that there is equity between all participants.”

Researchers and experts, typically, go about their research using specialized methodologies that treat people as subjects and themselves as especially endowed experts with special qualifications and credentials capable of exploring and authenticating knowledge. Even in Western models of ethical research practice, the relationship between the researcher and the subject continues to mechanically draw from traditional paradigms set within biomedical contexts.

This often does irreparable harm to research partners. “Participation as research subjects rather than partners automatically triggers a risk averse approach to engagement, which impedes rather than empowers,” says a SIAGI report.

The Australian team with Prof. Pulak Mishra (right) at the workshop

Contrary to this, SIAGI holds the conviction that the community has the potential to understand, analyse and interpret dynamics of knowledge transaction as equal partners. It believes that the community can become a decisive partner and co-creator of knowledge and is able to use this knowledge for transforming and empowering themselves and their situation – which is often defined by others and not by themselves. Communities need to be able to identify what makes them, who they are and how they can change themselves from where they are.

But how to achieve this? This is where listening comes in. “At SIAGI we are embarking on a journey of ethical community engagement, where especially the NGO partners are trained to listen and work with households to create their own unique voice,” said Dr. Christian Roth of CSIRO, who heads the SIAGI project.

At the workshop at IIT Kharagpur on September 16-17, Ms Michaela Cosjin reiterated that inclusive engagement demanded specific skills and attitudes integral to the engagement. It  requires non-judgemental listening and very sophisticated interpersonal skills. It also involved employing qualitative methods, such as listening to stories and scenario analysis, careful thinking and careful planning before going to the community with questions. A flexible monitoring and evaluation process, creating circumstances for co-learning and co-creating with the communities involved is also needed.

Participants at the workshop

ECE has brought results. For example, in Uttar Chakuakheti of Alipurduar district of West Bengal, where two faculty members from IIT Kharagpur – Prof. Pulak Mishra  and Prof. Bhagirath Behera, as well as three PhD students have been actively involved in carrying out the research on agricultural intensification. It is observed that despite initial indifference from the community, persistent engagement by the SIAGI team has helped change the attitude of the tribal community of this village in Alipurduar into active participation and collaboration. The community has been able to intensify agriculture and simultaneously claim due entitlements from the government to establish their rights to land. Community engagement has catalysed the inclusion of farmers –men and women belonging to different socio-economic groups.

Working with NGOs, such as CDHI, PRADAN, and Sushilan (Bangladesh), has been able to gradually and systematically, mobilize and bring on board various stakeholders. The most important manifestation of this mutual trust has been the creation of water and silt management committee with visible representation from the community.

Dr. Christian Roth said, “We wish to take the results outside SIAGI and inform other academicians in Australia, India, Bangladesh, and NGOs so that they can replicate the lessons and practices that NGOs working with SIAGI have developed.” Thrilled to introduce to research scholars at IIT Kharagpur the “new way of using science”, he pointed out that “Qualitative methodologies may not be about numbers but they are a rigorous  scientific method and, in my mind, qualitative and quantitative methods complement each other.”

Prof. Jenia Mukherjee of the Department of Humanities and Social Science of IIT Kharagpur, who was a participant at the workshop, said of its efficacy, “The workshop gave us hands-on training on how to go to the field and talk to the community, not only to involve the community but also to engage it. It taught us about what methods can be used in ethical community engagement so that the legacy of the project goes on for a long time. And that is what is required in social science research…so that we can transcend our theoretical research to action research by deeply involving and engaging the community.”

[As part of SIAGI since its inception in 2016, Prof. Pulak Mishra and Prof. Bhagirath Behera and their team of students have been engaged in economic analysis of value chains, model policy implications, and mapping the institutional landscape of West Bengal]