Farming "mushroom clouds"

It is the unfortunate standard practice for cash croppers of wheat and maize to burn the residue straight after harvesting.

In December each year the farmers with centre-pivot irrigation along the Orange River harvest the wheat. There is a limited window to plant a second summer crop of maize, and to save time, the wheat straw is burned.

The result is these massive mushroom clouds of smoke.

They appear each morning and evening and rise thousands of meters into the atmosphere polluting the air and stratosphere.

This smoke (from South Africa) has been detected in the jet streams across the Atlantic in South America.

Is it not possible to put pressure on South African farmers to cease this practice?

A large percentage of the cloud is water vapour, and for a desert environment like ours to burn irrigated water seems to be a squandering of a scarse resource. These circles of burning straw are between 70 and 150 hectares large, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of circles along the river. In the background sky you can see the dissapated smoke from other fires.

I wish that I could be around when this practice is finally banned - as it should be.