Agricultural Straw Burning Puzzles Air Pollution Prevention and Control

After the National Day holiday, many parts of the north have been hit by haze, and this round of haze has made agricultural straw burning a "target" and made the public once again focus on this difficult problem of government management.

Every autumn, as the grain harvest is coming to an end, the rural areas around the country enter the peak period of straw burning. A total of 862 suspected straw burning sites have been detected in 20 provinces in the past two weeks, an increase over the same period last year, and the situation of pollution prevention and control is grim, the Ministry of Environmental Protection reported.

China is a large agricultural country, which produces hundreds of millions of tons of crop straw every year. Burning the remaining straw harvested is a long-term treatment method in rural areas. On the one hand, it saves the handling effort, and on the other hand, it is crisp and convenient.

Although there are few public statements to clarify the direct relationship between straw burning and the current more serious haze, but its air pollution is obvious. Chai Fahe, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, said that when weather diffusion conditions are unfavorable, centralized straw burning will contribute to the occurrence of haze weather.

Although governments at all levels have banned "containment" and used policies to dredge the use of straw, it is still difficult to prohibit the burning of straw in autumn and spring. Prior to this, some people in Liaoning, Henan and other places have been detained, fined or even sentenced for burning wasteland. Some places have designated prohibited areas for straw burning and organized personnel to "contain" straw burning, but the effect is not satisfactory.

Corn in Heilongjiang Province, a major grain producing area, is in harvest. A farmer in Shuangcheng District, Harbin, said that the local burning of straw was concentrated from late October to early November, and "it has not been burned yet" because some families have not yet finished harvesting the grain in their fields.

The farmer said that part of the straw was bundled up and burned at home as firewood, and the rest was burned. There was no way not to burn it, otherwise it would affect farming in the coming year. During the day last year, someone refused to burn, so they took advantage of the rest of the night to light it, set it on fire and left.

Other major grain producing areas have entered the peak period of straw burning. Liaoning, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan and Jilin ranked the top five provinces in terms of the intensity of straw burning fire points, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection on the 18th.

An official from Suihua City once said during a discussion with the environmental protection department that it is very difficult to completely ban straw burning at the grass-roots level. On the one hand, it is due to the lack of awareness of farmers and hiding from village cadres, on the other hand, law enforcement at the grass-roots level is groundless and the work is more difficult, and it even aggravates the contradiction between the cadres and the masses at the grass-roots level.

Some experts estimate that at present, the amount of straw that cannot be used in China and is burned accounts for about 30% of the total. This part of the straw is difficult to deal with only because it is not cost-effective economically. Compared with incineration, the cost of collection and transportation is too high, so farmers would rather risk being caught and fined to start a fire.

Governments at all levels have been using policies and subsidies to guide straw as feed, fertilizer, planting edible fungus base material, fuel and so on, looking forward to the development of related industries to drive farmers and enterprises to benefit from straw utilization and solve the burning problem. However, some industries and enterprises survive on financial subsidies and become "bonsai" after the subsidies are withdrawn, which lacks market vitality and deviates from the original intention of straw utilization.

Heilongjiang Chenguang Energy Co., Ltd., which aims at the prospect of straw market, only produces straw curing equipment and provides technical solutions from this year, while giving up its own fuel chain. The company has previously set up a base to do straw molding, but affected by the low price of coal and other energy, straw has no cost advantage as energy, especially in the collection link, scattered straw brings higher labor and vehicle collection costs.

"Market-oriented behavior has not been established at present." Song Yongchun, general manager of the company, said that the base they established before is very difficult to see benefits, and it is basically inverted. Although they also enjoy government subsidies, the survival of enterprises does not rely on government support, and policy subsidies "can provide hunger, but not 100%."

However, many people are still optimistic about the prospect of straw utilization, and continue to enter this field. Heilongjiang Huahui Biological Engineering Co., Ltd. was registered and established this month. Xu Shanwen, general manager, said: "at present, the problems encountered in straw utilization can not be solved completely by limited subsidies. A more vital approach is to explore and improve it through market-oriented behavior."

Xu Shanwen said: through science and technology and industry to promote the solution of this environmental protection problem, from equipment manufacturing, technology to commodity sales, and so on, to mobilize the enthusiasm of all aspects of the industrial chain.