Investigation of straw burning around Beijing: villagers are the easiest to clean up difficult to burn

On October 28, in Weizhuang Village, Sizhuang Town, Gaobeidian City, straw was being burned in the field.

On October 29, in Laosongzhuang Village, Ji County, Tianjin, stalks of a field ignited a fire on the roadside.

On October 30, in Jinzhuang Village, Qukou Town, Xianghe County, straw in a field was burned, leaving a large area of ashes.

In Xinji Town, Sanhe City, there is a propaganda banner that prohibits straw burning

According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will have frequent haze in recent days. Although pollution emissions and weather factors are the main causes of the haze, in this season of late autumn and early winter, it can aggravate the burning of straw in hazy days. It is also the focus of strict supervision and inspection by the governments of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. In some places, inspectors are set up to prohibit burning in the fields.

　　 But even so, in the national straw burning fire spot monitoring announced on the official website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the fire spots in Hebei and Tianjin "listed" more frequently. From the end of October to the beginning of November, reporters from the Beijing News visited many counties and cities, including Langfang, Hebei and Baodi, Tianjin along the southeast of Beijing. They still found traces of burning in many fields. Villagers and ban inspectors were playing a "cat and mouse game".

　　 Why do we all know that it will pollute the air, or will a large amount of straw be burnt secretly? A reporter from the Beijing News found that straw has become a low-value "waste product" due to changes in the feed and fuel structure in the lives of farmers. The "fire" treatment also reveals the helplessness of farmers. How to improve the rational use of straw value is the expectation of many farmers, and it is also a problem that the government needs to pay attention to to solve the inevitable straw burning from the source.

　　 On October 28, Hebei’s autumn harvest and winter sowing had already ended.

　　 headed north along the outer ring road of Baigou Town, and plumes of white smoke rose into the sky from the northwest. Following the white smoke, it is not difficult to find the fire on the side of the road-a large area of burned straw in the corn field has turned black and gray, and a few hundred meters away, the low flames are crawling and devouring the harvested straw debris in the field. The billowing white smoke drifted towards the southwest sky, the air was filled with choking smoke, and the distance was full of dry fields.

　　 There was no one in the field, and the burning corn field was next to the village committee—Weizhuang Village, Sizhuang Town, Gaobeidian City. No one answered inside the closed red iron gate. Among the villagers within 500 meters of the surrounding area, some people said that "may be caused by cigarette butts" the cause of the fire, but no one wanted to name the owner of this field.

　　 Smoke haunts and burns hard to find

　　 There is not one straw burning site like Weizhuang Village where no arsonist or cause of the fire can be found. When asked by outsiders, it is hard to know who this land belongs to.

　　 Because of this, Li Hongbing, a cadre of a township environmental protection agency, usually fails to grasp the "current". Since last year, the government of Qukou Township, Xianghe County where he is located, has started to vigorously control straw burning in accordance with the arrangement of the superior.

　　 Before the autumn harvest this year, Li Hongbing participated in many meetings on the prohibition of burning, and then organized people to hang banners on the streets, use the village broadcast to promote, and distribute leaflets to the villagers. In addition, the most powerful measure is to invest in the town to hire inspectors, one or two in each village, with a monthly salary of 500 yuan per person, responsible for 24-hour patrols. "There are three groups of people in our town, two people in a car, Fragment package dry."

　　 On October 30, nearly 5 mu of harvested corn fields were covered with black ash in the fields at the north end of Jinzhuang Village, Qukou Town. A few days ago, when the inspectors from the village arrived, they did not find anyone who started the ignition, so they could only put out the fire with the fire extinguisher and shovel pulled from the car. When no one was found, Li Hongbing could only think in good faith, “It may be caused by passers-by throwing cigarette butts or burning coal in someone’s house.”

　　 Li Hongbing said that at the beginning of the work of prohibiting burning, the inspectors walked with their front feet and the villagers burned their hind feet. When catching Huohuo villagers, the other party’s "sophistry" often left Li Hongbing not knowing how to answer, "People say, ‘I take it home as fuel and burn it, or I have to exhaust it into the air, you don’t care.’"

　　 Later, with a legal basis, Li Hongbing could be confident, "According to the regulations, burning straw is illegal, and a fine of 100-200 yuan is found. If it is serious, it can be sent to the police station." But so far, Li Hongbing has not dealt with any villager.

　　 Fines are a punishment, and it is not easy to enforce them. “People do not make money from farming. Many of them are criticized and educated. If they are really punished, what if they do something bad and steal something? Work is even harder.”

Therefore, in the two or three months before and after the autumn harvest each year, the cadres and inspectors in Qukou Township have almost no Saturdays and Sundays. They go around the village during the day and dare not relax their vigilance at night. "The pressure is quite high. The town is 66 square kilometers. , You have to put aside other work in your hands, banning burning is a top priority.” Li Hongbing attaches great importance to burning ban as a political task.

　　 "What can I do without burning"

　　 In Xinji Town, Sanhe City, not far from Xianghe River, along the way from Fuqian Street to Huzhuang Village, you can see banners that prohibit the burning of straw and encourage the return of straw to the field.

On October 31, in the corn field in front of Qian Mingan (pseudonym), a villager in Huzhuang Village, the burned traces were conspicuous. “It’s not my home and I don’t know who burned it.” Qian Ming’an would not disclose the door. The former owner of the cornfield, but he blushed and said, "What can I do without burning it?"

　　 Qian Mingan recalled that in the past, it was cut manually with a sickle, and the threshing straw was pulled home to burn on the kang, lighted a fire, and fed to cattle and sheep. Nowadays, gas and electricity are mainly used, and livestock is rarely fed. The straw is “almost useless”. At the same time, after using the combine harvester, the corn stalks become stubble and remain in the field. After harvesting corn in autumn, farmers must rush to sow wheat in winter at an interval of up to 2 weeks. During this period, the stubble must be removed to continue farming. "Clean up these debris, one person per acre, and it will not be cleaned for half a day. The most convenient."

"The burning of straw is actually the result of changes in farmers' production and lifestyle. To completely ban burning, we must find the source of the change." He Xiaoxia, director of the Dalwen Institute of Environmental Studies and PhD from the School of Environmental Science and Engineering of Peking University, explained. In the past, straw was used as a fuel for farmers to burn little by little, without causing one-time large-scale air pollution, and the burned ash would be returned to the field by farmers as ash. With the entry of coal and electricity into farms and the commercialization of livestock breeding, the straw’s fuel and feed functions have been lost. From “useful” to “useless” for farmers in the past, coupled with farming time restrictions, it is burned before there is no good treatment method. The most convenient.

　　 In recent years, in order to curb the burning of straw, the country has begun to advocate returning straw to the field. In June of this year, the "Hebei Daily" released a message from the Provincial Agricultural Machinery Bureau that "the rate of straw returning to fields in the province this summer exceeded 95%."

　　 But Qian Mingan believes that these stubbles cannot be returned to the fields.

He ran into the field and grabbed a handful of straw stubble and said that after the harvester passed by, it could leave 20 cm thick stubble. If it was turned into the field and returned to the field, the land would not be digested in a short time. The field is prone to insects that will affect the growth of the next season's crops. "Light a fire and all problems will be solved."

　　 He Xiaoxia confirmed Qian Mingan's statement.

She explained that returning straw to the field is a measure of using straw as organic fertilizer and reapplying it to the ground to improve soil fertility. “It requires a humid and hot environment for the natural fermentation of straw into organic fertilizer. Active microorganisms do not have these conditions in autumn and winter. It’s hard to return the field effectively."

　　According to the calculations given by the China Agricultural Information Network (sponsored by the Information Center of the Ministry of Agriculture), whether it is returning to the field with straw mulching or turning over, the quantity must be considered. "Too much is not conducive to the decay and mineralization of straw, and even affects the emergence or growth of seedlings, resulting in reduced crop yields. Too little will not achieve the intended purpose."

Although he thinks "burning is the most trouble-free", Qian Mingan doesn't think that "burning" is a good way. "Burning land will increase the heat of the land, is not good for the land, and pollutes the air. Farmers understand that, but everyone has no way to deal with it. Excess straw."

　　Corporate layout straw losses

　　 Actually, when Li Hongbing and the cadres in the town surrounded and burned the straw, they were thinking, can they stop the villagers from burning the straw from the source and find another way to deal with the straw?

"For example, to build a plant that reuses straw." But Li Hongbing thought about it again. As the number of people on the land decreases, the farmland is shrinking. "To build a plant, if someone needs 100,000 tons of straw to operate a year, it will come to us. What if I can’t receive it?"

　　 Li Hongbing’s worries are not unfounded. A biomass energy company headquartered in Gu'an, Hebei, uses straw as a raw material to produce clean energy. Manager Zhang Guoxin experienced the failure of setting up production sites in the village.

According to Zhang Guoxin, the production bases of biomass energy companies mainly revolve around the production areas of raw materials. “Where the base is, the straw is recycled.” He explained that the company recycles 100 yuan per ton of dry straw, which is not suitable for long-distance transportation. Relying on the farmers themselves to "deliver stalks to the door" through agricultural transportation. With a radius of five kilometers and more than 5 kilometers, the number of farmers who are willing to transport gradually decreases. "The straw contains water, and farmers usually wait until it is almost dry before shipping, otherwise it will increase costs. "And five kilometers away, unless it is high-value raw materials such as cotton straw, companies will take the initiative to recycle.

At present, the company has production bases in Chengde, Langfang, Baoding, Handan, Hebei, and other places. “The northernmost Chengde has a higher recovery rate because local crops are planted once a year, and farmers are not in a hurry to catch up and harvest straw. Handan mainly harvests cotton stalks, and the situation is relatively good. The most difficult part is in the middle agricultural areas such as Langfang, Baoding, and Cangzhou. They plant two crops a year. When rushing to the farm, they are unwilling to waste costly wet straw, and many straws are returned to the field. , Or burn it."

In the early days of the establishment of the company in 2009, Zhang Guoxin had considered the transportation radius of raw materials to facilitate the transportation of farmers, and cooperated with some township governments to arrange a straw coal production site in several villages to provide personnel, technology and production equipment. "We and local An agreement was signed, farmers don’t need to spend money, they only need to provide straw raw materials to get straw coal, and the excess products will be sold by the company to offset the equipment payment."

　　Zhang Guoxin's layout finally ended in failure. “The farmers did not abide by the agreement, the raw materials could not be collected, and the equipment was not used in the end. All our money was lost.” After the failed attempt, Zhang Guoxin gave up the layout plan of the production site.

　　The ban on burning needs to solve the way out of straw

When dealing with the local government and farmers, Zhang Guoxin found that the government had a "welcome with open arms" attitude towards straw recycling companies, but farmers were unwilling to spend a lot of effort to transport them in order to consider the cost. The government was limited by its responsibilities and could not directly issue orders. This directly leads to the lack of market operation in the comprehensive utilization of straw.

　　Actually, the reporter combed the reports in recent years and found that Hebei and Tianjin's “combination of dredging and blocking” measures to control straw incineration are often reported in newspapers, such as subsidizing the purchase of machines for returning to the field, developing straw solid forming fuels, and promoting the technology of edible fungi grown by straw.

　　 There are not many measures taken by the government, but why is the dilemma between "no burning" and "no burning" still bothering the government and farmers? In this regard, a relevant person in charge of Tianjin City once analyzed in an interview with the media that the number of comprehensive straw utilization enterprises is small, the scale is small, the degree of straw resource utilization and commercialization is low, and the mechanized return of straw to the field, collection and storage , The high transportation cost restricts the enthusiasm of farmers and enterprises for comprehensive utilization. In addition, the amount of straw is large and wide. If you want to prevent incineration through law enforcement, there are also problems in terms of human and property.

In He Xiaoxia’s view, to a certain extent, to prevent straw burning as a long-term way to control air pollution, the government should "do something", "for example, can we reasonably arrange some industries that digest straw according to the distribution of rural areas? Or aquaculture.” He Xiaoxia said that the government spends money to control the air every year. If a part of the cost can be used to subsidize farmers to transport straw to digestion companies and breeding factories, or use policies to guide the market and let farmers sell straw To generate a certain income, the problem of straw burning can be solved from the source.

　　 Zhang Guoxin said that at present, he has not seen a special "stalk broker". In fact, between enterprises and farmers, there is a need for such an industry, "Without a market, it will certainly not be scaled up. After all, crops are restricted by the farming time, only a few months a year, and the value of straw itself is not that great."

He Xiaoxia also agrees with Zhang Guoxin's "straw broker" saying, "it seems to be similar to the recycling of waste in the city." He Xiaoxia believes that straw, as the "waste" of farmers, can also create a recycling industry. Under the guidance of the government , So that the trafficking of straw generates revenue, some people are willing to do it.