“The motherland has birds and other living creatures to feed,” the song goes, “don’t burn rice straw to choke them to death.”

Described by one farmer as the “most forward village in all of Punjab,” Bishanpur Channa has become a model. Many farmers here said that instead of burning they planned to use machines like one called the Happy Seeder, which mixes excess straw into the dirt.

“Our objective is to reduce pollution,” said Harinder Singh, 45, who yells when he talks.

But in poorer villages people seemed less inclined to change their ways. About 20 miles down the road, a group of farmers who had gathered near a field offered a list of grievances.

A government program that subsidizes harvesting equipment is still too expensive, they said. Government agents promise new equipment and then disappear. Politicians seem less interested in the poorer farmers, because their plots are so small.

Gurmeet Singh, a gangly young farmer, said that lowering pollution was a nice thought, but that with no money to spare, “the whole village will burn.”

As night fell, he walked out to his rice fields. His plot was littered with dry straw. He bent down and struck a match.

Soon enough, clouds of smoke lifted into the sky.