The other face of air pollution | Excerpt from The Nitrogen Bomb by Jacob Koshy
This excerpt from 'The Nitrogen Bomb' examines how ammonia emissions from agricultural activities significantly contribute to air pollution in India's Indo-Gangetic Plain. It argues that secondary pollutants, formed by the interaction of agricultural ammonia and industrial emissions, are a major, often overlooked, component of the region's PM2.5 crisis.
Why it matters
It challenges the conventional focus on primary pollutants like stubble burning and vehicle exhaust, suggesting that agricultural policy is critical to solving urban air quality issues.
The other face of air pollution | Excerpt from The Nitrogen Bomb by Jacob Koshy left A commuter waits amid heavy fog near Red Fort in New Delhi. Getty Images https://th-i.thgim.com/public/society/ohz5hn/article71610918.ece/alternates/FREE_1200/Untitled%20design%20-%202026-10-22T150441.892.png The book explores how ammonia, largely emitted by agricultural activities, contributes to worsening air quality across the Indo-Gangetic Plain The Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) stretches across northern India in a 2,500-kilometre arc from Pakistan to Bangladesh and is home to nearly half a billion people. It is one of the most intensively farmed landscapes on earth, and by every atmospheric measure, one of the most chemically burdened places that has been peopled for millennia.
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