In the autumn of the year in India, thousands of paddy farmers from all over the country would gather in Kutail village to set fire to the stalks leftover from the rice harvest.
But this year, Kalyan decided to change. He signed his land up for a trial in order to find a solution to the pollution caused by stubble burning in India and a major cause of Delhi's notorious smog.
His 40 acres were serviced by a tractor spraying an enzyme which breaks down the stubble into useful fertiliser in just under a month.
This new solution will benefit us a lot. It will reduce our cost, increase our yield and reduce pollution.
A farmer is Anil Kalyan.
We used to burn the stubble. There was no other solution for it. Burning caused pollution, the death of soil-friendly microbes, and the reduction of yield. He says that the costs increased every time they were in the field.
This new solution will benefit us a lot. It will reduce our cost, increase our yield and reduce pollution.
The largest ever project to eliminate stubble burning in India hopes to end the burning of more than 2.3 million hectares of paddy fields annually. nurture.farm launched a digital platform for sustainable agriculture 18 months ago.
More than 700 machines were used to spray the 170,000 hectares in 23 districts. More than 25,000 farmers participated in the experiment.
More than one million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions were prevented by the trial.
The Indian Agricultural Research Institute has developed an enzyme that increases organic carbon in the soil. nurture.farm used satellite pictures from the European Space Agency to locate burning fields.
A farmer is burning straw stubble. Satellites have detected more than 70,000 fires in India this year. Money Sharma is pictured.
India is the world's largest rice exporter. Adding to air pollution is the fact that the fires diminish the soil's ability to hold water. The practice of crop burning can account for 45% of Delhi's pollution.
Dhruv Sawhney, chief operating officer at nurture.farm, says more than 70,000 farm fires were detected by satellite imagery in India this year.
He says thatbble burning has become a perennial issue because of a mismatch of policy and agricultural practices.
To sustain and scale up the project, he wants to give farmers carbon credits. The firm is launching a label that will let people know if the rice is sustainable.
Alternative wet and dry practices in rice paddies could be used to generate more carbon credits, which would save water and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Roughly 40% of the area usually burned will be covered by the programme next year.
A man is spraying a field. Farmers burning stubble in India causes a lot of air pollution in the winter. The picture was taken by Mayank Makhija/Nur Photo/Rex.
Farmers see stubble burning as the only viable option to clear fields in a short period of time, despite previous bans on the practice. The government decriminalised stubble burning in November.
We should have been able to end stubble burning by now if we just punished farmers. The head of the clean air programme at India's Centre for Science and Environment says that there is evidence that fire incidents have come down in areas where alternatives are implemented.
The lack of access to solutions does not work.
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