A spray of common bacteria and fungi has been developed to rapidly biodegrade agricultural waste in the fields of India, enriching degraded soils and saving thousands in material and labor costs. Furthermore, it’s eliminating the practice of burning post-harvest waste, a significant contributor to one of India’s most infamous societal problems: smog.
New Delhi has the most polluted air of any world city, while India has 26 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities measured by air quality. This is primarily due to the richness of the farmland in the north-Indian states. This ‘stubble burning,’ takes place on 5.7 million acres of rice paddy and continues mostly unabated despite being illegal for decades.
Nurture.farm is an ag-services company that pioneered a groundbreaking solution to the problem of stubble burning/air pollution. Called the PUSA Decomposer, it’s nothing more than seven species of fungi and bacteria present in India’s soils. The Agricultural Research Institute in Delhi developed it; this microbial spray breaks down all leftover stubble in just three weeks. After just eight days, knee-high rice stalks disappear.
