-The Tribune Muktsar: Harbrinder Singh Gill, a farmer from Tarmala village of the Malout subdivision here, claims to have found an indigenous way to tackle stubble burning and sowing wheat using a pocket-friendly machine. Even officials of the Agriculture Department visited and inspected his fields and were satisfied with his creation. Harbrinder claimed that he had sown wheat crop on 38 acres by using his machine, which he invented four years ago....

-The Times of India JALANDHAR: Punjab farmers have started sowing wheat as paddy harvesting enters the last stage with just one-fifth of the crop left to be cut in fields. Paddy stubble management, however, continues to be vexatious issue, both for the farmers and the state administration. The lack of gap between harvesting paddy and sowing wheat and increased time and high cost of operating subsidised straw management machines have left farmers...

-The Hindu Farmers in Punjab continue to burn paddy stubble every winter despite a ban on the practice. Jacob Koshy and Vikas Vasudeva report on the compulsions that drive farmers to adopt this method of clearing their fields and the efforts by the State administration to wean them off it The highway to Bibipur, a hamlet about 50 km from Patiala town, cuts through acres of paddy. Some of the rice stalk...

-Down to Earth Debt-ridden farmers have to either rent or buy the machines, which pose several threats to their next crop Hamir Singh, 53, who holds a 14-acre farm in Kalajhar village in Sangrur district of Punjab, had decided to toe the line, but didn’t work for him. He followed the ban on crop residue burning and tried using new technology like the rotavator, which has rotating blades that chop the straw...

-The Indian Express Every October, the air quality in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana plummets as farmers set the leftover stubble and loose straw on fire after paddy is harvested using combines. And this time, too, the smoke signals from the fields are ominous Ambala, Karnal, Patiala: “A matchbox costs just Rs 2, you know,” says Ram Pal Rana, as he collects and piles up dry straw on one side of his...