The Green Revolution has led to intensive, irrigated rice-wheat systems across the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). The limited turn-around time between rice harvest and sowing of the next crop (wheat) and mechanized harvesting of rice pose a critical challenge for farmers to sustainably handle the surplus rice residues. Because only a few economically viable residue-management alternatives are readily available, a majority of the 2.5 million farmers burn an estimated 23 million metric tons of rice stubble in October and November. The rice residue burning and the resultant increase in air pollution have received significant media attention in the recent past. Residue
burning causes the emission of short-lived climate pollutants, such as methane and black carbon. A solution for residue burning is offered by the application of two fundamental principles of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in wheat – minimal soil disturbance and crop residue retention for mulching. CA is heralded as more sustainable than traditional tillage alternatives. The technology diffusion has so far been only marginal in eastern IGP due to multiple institutional and economic constraints. The present survey was conducted in four districts of Punjab to (a) identify the adoption pattern of CA and alternative tillage practices among farmers (b) elicit farmer perceptions regarding different tillage options in different dimensions such as cost of cultivation, yield, input requirement, pest infestation, etc. Most of the sample farmers were visited by CIMMYT researchers in 2018 and 2021.
