In a few weeks, Delhi will again begin watching Punjab's farm fires. Governments will announce measures and farmers will again be asked not to burn paddy straw. But the economics facing farmers has changed little over the years: bulky residue, a narrow window before wheat sowing, and a cost attached to almost every alternative to burning.
What has changed, write Shweta Saini and Gopal Sood, is the value of parali itself. When the authors began working on crop residues, farmers in several locations were still paying to have straw removed. Today, in parts of Punjab, the same straw can fetch around Rs 1.5-2 per kg. Demand from power plants, CBG units and pellet manufacturers is slowly creating a market for what was until recently treated as waste.
This raises another question: If parali now has value, where should that value be created, and how much can remain with the farmer?
Biochar offers one possibility. It is a carbon-rich material produced by heating biomass under limited oxygen, and can be made from crop residues such as paddy, maize, cotton and mustard stalks. Roughly 100 kg of dry parali can yield around 30 kg of char. Applied to soil, it can improve water retention and nutrient-use efficiency, while locking carbon away for a century.
This differs from using biomass only as fuel. Burning recovers energy but returns much of its carbon to atmosphere. Biochar applied to soil can retain significant share while also serving an agronomic purpose. For Punjab, this matters. Its rice-wheat system is under stress from declining soil quality, intensive fertiliser use, and groundwater depletion. Residue generated by the same system could improve its soils.
The problem is where processing happens. Parali has to be collected, baled, stored and transported within the narrow window before wheat sowing. Long-distance transport of a bulky, relatively low-value material quickly eats into its economics. The farmer supplies raw material, while much value-addition happens after biomass leaves the village.
With biochar, the irony is greater. A farmer may supply straw, see it processed elsewhere and later buy back a product made from biomass originating on farms like his.
Why not, then, move the technology closer to the straw? India already understands decentralised rural processing. Wheat does not travel 100 km merely because flour requires machinery. The village chakki places processing close to where commodity is produced and consumed. Paddy residue may need similar rethink.
The authors are developing a village-scale biochar system around a build-operate-transfer model. A technology provider initially installs and operates the unit, trains local operators and ensures quality and emission standards. Over time, asset and capability transfer to an FPO, SHG, or cooperative.
The government does not need to run thousands of such units. It can provide standards, training, concessional finance and initial support. Panchayats can help with land and coordination. Farmers could bring straw to a nearby processing point much as they bring wheat to a flour mill. Some biochar could return to their fields; the rest could be sold where markets exist.
This changes economics. Raw straw travels less, value addition happens closer to farmer, villages are not left with subsidised machinery nobody knows how to operate. It also changes incentive to burn. Burning remains quick and cheap where alternatives involve cost, labour and uncertainty. Enforcement and machinery subsidy can help, but behaviour is likely to change when residue itself becomes valuable.
As biomass markets develop, question should be: Where should value from parali be created, and who should capture it? Answer may lie closer to farm.