Douse the farm fire

A market for paddy biomass is the only sustainable solution

The crop residue burning season is barely a month away but there is hardly any indication that the northern region, including the National Capital Region of Delhi (NCR), would not get choked in the beginning of the ensuing winter with smoke emanating from flaming farm fields. The situation may, in fact, be worse this time than last year, when the farm fires played havoc. Neither the threat of punitive action nor the offer of fiscal sops for safe management of the leftover crop biomass had deterred the farmers from torching their fields. Since Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (UP) are now