International Journal of Agriculture, Environment and Biotechnology

This study estimates the benefits of rice residue burning in the field. Farmers in Bangladesh burnt an estimated 3.14 million metric tons of rice residue in 2010. We take the south-west region of Bangladesh as the study site. Our study finds that farmers who burn residue derive an economic benefit from residue burning in the field over those who do not burn residue. However, the available literature finds open burning of crop residue in the field to cause gaseous and particulate emissions. Therefore, our study proposes to persuade farmers for moving to IRRI and Sarna varieties as policy interventions for handling the residue burning issue. Research and development efforts into rice variety development and rice and residue collection methods are among other options that would mitigate the problem under consideration.