PATIALA: When smoke from burning paddy stubble was choking Delhi last year, a village near Nabha in Punjab was doing its bit to keep the air clean. Not a straw was burnt in Kalar Majra, where 60 families farm about 700 acres.“The government chose our village as a model , and gave all the machinery needed to manage the crop residue,” says Bir Dalvinder Singh, a Kalar Majra farmer who persuaded his neighbours to heed the government’s call against burning stubble. Their eco-friendly step earned praise from the National Green Tribunal.Although there is no assistance from the government this year, almost 70% of Kalar Majra has decided not to burn paddy stubble, with good reason. Ploughing it back into the soil is good not only for Delhi’s air but also the farmers’ bottom line.Few know this better than Surjeet Singh of Sadhugarh village in Punjab’s Fatehgarh Sahib district. He hasn’t burnt crop residue on his 45 acres for the past 15 years. “I use a ‘happy seeder’ to manage the stubble, and for the last two harvests I used the straw management system of a combine harvester .”Surjeet had his moments of doubt when costs shot up in the first two years. “It appeared to be a bad decision,” he said, but he started saving on fertiliser and fuel from the third crop onwards. He claims his use of fertiliser has halved. “Despite that my crop yield has increased by at least 20%.”Parvinder Singh, of Mavi Kalan village near Patran, is another advocate of the happy seeder. It not only saves diesel at the time of tilling, but also water, as the fields don’t need irrigation before sowing.

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