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With a paddy stubble fire burning nearby, workers cutting a firebreak to protect a rice field hustle to unclog a combine near Amritsar, Punjab, in the heart of India’s breadbasket region. Rice stubble does not break down quickly or help the next crop. Burning rice stubble is illegal under India’s air quality laws, but fines are few, and each year tens of thousands of paddy fires are lit in September and October, leading to thick smog and poor air quality as far away as Delhi, 250 miles away. Most of India’s farmers are poor and tend fewer than five acres. Their powerful farmers’ union argues that they have few options to get the fields ready quickly to plant the traditional wheat crop during the winter season known as rabi in India. As one farmer told Steinmetz, a match is much cheaper than the fuel needed to plow the stalks under.

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With a paddy stubble fire burning nearby, workers cutting a firebreak to protect a rice field hustle to unclog a combine near Amritsar, Punjab, in the heart of India’s breadbasket region. Rice stubble does not break down quickly or help the next crop. Burning rice stubble is illegal under India’s air quality laws, but fines are few, and each year tens of thousands of paddy fires are lit in September and October, leading to thick smog and poor air quality as far away as Delhi, 250 miles away. Most of India’s farmers are poor and tend fewer than five acres. Their powerful farmers’ union argues that they have few options to get the fields ready quickly to plant the traditional wheat crop during the winter season known as rabi in India. As one farmer told Steinmetz, a match is much cheaper than the fuel needed to plow the stalks under.

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