Why political will is required to enable agri sector to attain carbon neutrality

With the world’s largest crop-land area of 168.66 million hectares, constituting 10.8 per cent of the global share, India stands as a significant contributor to agriculture emissions. The country, producing the highest agriculture emissions, possesses substantial potential for reducing global emissions and generating carbon credits. While greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Indian agriculture are predominantly associated with crop and livestock production, experts emphasise the crucial requirement for political will to enable the agricultural sector to attain carbon neutrality.

In the ICRIER’s Agriculture Policy, Sustainability, and Innovation (APSI) quarterly publication, Agri-Food Trends and Analytics Bulletin (AF-TAB) titled ‘G20 to G21: One Earth, One Family, One Future,’ Reena Singh and Ashok Gulati highlighted that the estimated non-CO₂ GHG emissions from Indian agriculture reached approximately ~500 mt CO₂ eq in 2021-22.

This calculation excludes emissions from land use change, land use, and forestry activities. The authors specify that 54 per cent of India’s agricultural GHG emissions arise from enteric fermentation, followed by 21 per cent from rice cultivation, 17 per cent from agricultural soils, 6 per cent from manure management, and 2 per cent from field burning of agricultural residues.

This breakdown sheds light on the significant contribution of different agricultural activities to the overall GHG emissions in the country during the specified period.

According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), agriculture is highly at risk from climate change, requiring urgent adaptation response in the coming years to meet global food supply. At the same time, agriculture emits significant amounts of GHG into the atmosphere, so mitigation in agriculture features prominently in the climate change response plans of many countries. The largest contributors from agriculture are non-CO₂ emissions from crop and livestock activities within the farm gate and carbon losses from land use – mainly due to deforestation and peatland degradation.

India has the world’s largest bovine population (303 million) and it also produces the world’s largest amount of methane emissions (such as burping) from enteric fermentation (263 MtCO₂ eq).

“ This offers a significant scope for reduction in this area. Furthermore, with the largest rice cultivation area in the world (45 Mha), India’s rice paddy fields (besides China) generate the largest sources of emissions (produced 144 MtCO2 eq in 2021-22, which includes methane emissions from flooding, nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizers, carbon-dioxide emissions from energy sources used in rice cultivation and non-CO2 emissions from burning of rice residues),” according to Singh and Gulati.  

Experts propose that possessing the world’s largest crop-land area provides the country with substantial potential to take the lead in carbon markets within the agriculture sector. 

Harmful production practices and incentives

Currently, the agriculture sector benefits from significant financial support from both Central and State governments through various schemes encompassing fertilizer, irrigation, power, equipment and credit. This support amounted to approximately ₹3-lakh crore in FY2021-22.

Singh and Gulati in their study reveal that Punjab emitted the highest GHG (5t CO2 eq/ha) from rice cultivation on a per-hectare basis in 2021-22.

Punjab farmers received ₹30,804 as the total fertilizer and irrigation subsidies from both the State and Central governments specifically for rice cultivation. This amount represents 56 per cent of the overall agriculture subsidies allocated to Punjab farmers.

Given that rice is the primary Kharif crop in Punjab, requiring 20-25 irrigations compared with four-five irrigations for other crops; approximately 67 per cent of the power subsidy is directed towards rice cultivation. The provision of free electricity and the guaranteed procurement of paddy act as disincentives for farmers in Punjab to diversify from rice cultivation, despite it being a major GHG-intensive crop, authors conclude.  

Higher profits from paddy cultivation do not allow farmers to diversify to other crops. The authors suggested that to encourage farmers to diversify total paddy subsidy provided to farmers needs to be diverted from rice to other crops, such as maize. Farmers should be incentivised through carbon credits. Markets and incentives for alternate crops need to be worked out.

Political will

Every attempt at agricultural reform in India has faced resistance, with political parties swiftly intervening to align with and promote prevailing public sentiments. Leaders of the Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra, advocating for significant changes in the agricultural market sector and the freedom to leverage technology, assert that political parties and successive governments have prioritised their electoral support bases over implementing necessary reforms.

“Whether agriculture will ultimately achieve carbon neutrality will depend on whether policies with that goal are adopted — and that is a question of political will, not a scientific one,” said Singh and Gulati in their piece recommending linking agri-input subsidies with GHG’s mitigation targets, introducing procurement of produce with low GHG foot-prints at premium minimum support price (MSP) and crop diversification for regions with high GHG per unit area and per kg of crop produced.

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