The burning of residues left in the field after harvest has been practiced by farmers for many years (Wikipedia says it is approximately 10,000 years). Burning can make field prep easier next spring, and it helps control plant diseases that can over-winter in crop residues. I can vividly remember burning wheat stubble for Charlie Moses, who hired me to help irrigate his small farm of approximately 80 acres just west of Blackfoot, Idaho where I grew up. I was given a handful of matches and told to ride my motorcycle through the field. I lit matches on the gas tank or handle bars of the motorcycle and threw them into the stubble as I rode. By the time I got to the end of the field, if I had done my job correctly, I was being followed by a raging inferno which consumed the stubble, and nearly consumed me and my old Yamaha MX 175.
As times have changed, so have people's attitudes about field burning. North Carolina has recently updated its rules on agricultural burning (click here for the press release). The American Agricultural Law Association also recently posted the details of ag burning legislation in Idaho on its blog. Of course, the aim of these rules and statutes is to curb ag burning.
In North Carolina, a memorandum of understanding between the state Department of the Environment and the Department of Agriculture set new guidelines for burning. The North Carolina Department of the Environment's website does not reveal the extent of the new regulations, and I don't have time at the moment to research in depth what the regulations actually say. But it probably isn't a stretch to assume that it is now more difficult to burn crop residues in North Carolina.
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