Behaviour Change Approaches to Tackle Stubble Burning at Scale

Crop residue (stubble) burning in northwest India remains one of the most visible contributors to the region’s severe seasonal air pollution, accounting for up to 30–35 per cent of Delhi’s PM2.5 during the October–November peak. Since 2018, the Crop Residue Management (CRM) scheme has made real progress, with more than INR 2229.38 crore being disbursed, providing 1.5 lakh machines and 27,083 Custom Hiring Centres alone in Punjab- resulting in fire counts falling. Yet nearly half of Punjab’s farmers still burn or partially burn their residue. Communication efforts to date have focused largely on raising awareness, implicitly treating low adoption as an information problem. But information alone rarely changes behaviour. This report, drawing on primary research with farmers and agriculture officials across Punjab, examines the scheme’s often-overlooked third pillar — communication — through a behavioural science lens. It diagnoses why farmers continue to burn even when they know the harms, and sets out how a structured Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) approach — grounded in behavioural frameworks such as COM-B, EAST and MINDSPACE — can shift the system from informing farmers to actually changing behaviour at scale.

Key Findings

The study draws on primary research in Punjab: a survey of 102 farmers across Sangrur, Ludhiana and Amritsar, focus group discussions with 36 farmers, and consultations with 15 agriculture officials. The findings are categorised using a 4C framework — coverage, clarity, credibility, and conversion.

• Coverage: Communication reaches farmers late, if at all. 63 per cent of surveyed farmers never received CRM-related information on time, and 86 per cent were unaware of the Unnat Kisan portal, a key digital channel meant to support them. Low awareness also keeps farmers away from capacity building efforts— 78 per cent were unaware of training schedules, the primary barrier to training attendance.
• Clarity: Messages inform rather than prompt action. Materials carry several competing messages in an official, regulatory tone with no single clear next step, and trainings are largely lecture-based (73 per cent of attendees surveyed) rather than demonstration-led — hands-on field demonstrations receive just 6.59 per cent of the IEC budget, which leans heavily on low-engagement channels such as pamphlets and wall paintings.
• Credibility: Trusted voices are underutilised while misinformation spreads among peers. Agriculture extension officers are farmers’ most trusted source of information (62 per cent), yet the in-person channels they anchor are underfunded. Meanwhile, 67 per cent of farmers who burn cite preventing pest attacks although more than half  of them have never witnessed one, and a norms gap persists — 90 per cent personally disapprove of burning but 73 per cent see their neighbours doing it, so visible burning normalises the practice.
• Conversion: Real progress, but a winnable middle remains. 63 per cent of surveyed farmers reported moving away from burning, while 31 per cent are “partial burners” who already use machinery but still burn over largely unfounded pest fears — the group most likely to convert with targeted Behaviour Change Communication.

These are behavioural, not informational, gaps. Evidence shows that information provision alone typically yields only a 2–3 per cent behavioural shift; closing them requires a structured BCC approach that addresses capability, opportunity and motivation together.