Ashok Gulati
Twenty-five years is a long enough period to look back and ask what Narendra Modi’s governance, first as Chief Minister and then as Prime Minister, has meant for Indian agriculture. This journey began in Gujarat in October 2001, when he became Chief Minister and acquired a national canvas in May 2014.
As I have said earlier, the Gujarat story deserves to be recalled because it was an agrarian miracle. Between 2001–02 to 2013–14, Gujarat’s agricultural GDP grew at around 9% per year, which was the highest among the major states. What made this possible was not one scheme or one crop. It was an ecosystem.
Gujarat invested heavily in bringing water to farms and retaining the water that nature provided. Check dams and farm ponds helped conserve rainwater and recharge groundwater. The Narmada canal system expanded irrigation. Micro-irrigation helped farmers get more out of less water.
Equally important was power. The Jyotigram scheme separated agricultural feeders and provided farmers with reliable electricity. This brought greater predictability to irrigation and also improved quality of life in rural areas. The transformation in rural electricity supply also helped non-farm activity in villages.
Then there were roads. All-weather rural connectivity linked villages more effectively to markets, input suppliers, extension services and towns. Agriculture can become a growth engine when the farmer is integrated with the rest of the economy.
An interesting institutional innovation was the effort to take knowledge to the farmer. The Krishi Mahotsav and Krishi Rath brought agricultural scientists, extension officials and information on soil, water, technology and improved practices directly to villages. The idea was that agricultural knowledge should travel to the farmers, rather than individual farmers travelling to institutions for knowledge.
The lesson from Gujarat was therefore larger than any individual intervention. Water, power, roads, technology, agri-extension and markets reinforced one another. When these things came together, farmers responded and agriculture became an engine of growth. This is still a model for any state that wants farmers and the economy to flourish.
When Modi became Prime Minister, the canvas expanded from one state to the country.
Some of the Gujarat experience was translated into national programmes. Water management received greater attention. Soil Health Cards brought scientific soil testing and informed nutrient management into the mainstream. Irrigation acquired a more integrated approach, with greater emphasis on watershed development, micro-irrigation and “Per Drop More Crop.” The Amrit Sarovar initiative has added another layer to the effort to create and rejuvenate water assets.
The underlying principle in all these initiatives is particularly relevant for India. Water is not simply an agricultural input. In a water-stressed country, productive water management is itself a source of agricultural growth.
Under Modi, there has also been a fundamental change in the relationship between the farmer and the state.
PM-KISAN put direct income support into the hands of farmers. By June 2026, more than Rs 4.46 lakh crore has been transferred through 23 instalments. Its significance lies in creating a direct, digital and transparent financial channel between the government and the farmer, reducing the layers of intermediation that have traditionally characterised welfare delivery.
PM-KISAN represents a shift in the architecture of agricultural support towards putting purchasing power directly in the hands of farmers and trusting them to make decisions. Direct income support is more transparent, less distortionary and can reach a much larger share of farming households than loan waivers or policies that benefit only farmers growing particular crops. This also opens a larger reform direction for Indian agriculture of gradually rationalising inefficient input subsidies and moving towards direct support to farmers, while using the savings for agricultural infrastructure, R&D and diversification.
The post-2014 period has also seen agriculture being understood increasingly as more than crops. The cooperative sector has its own ministry to devote exclusive focus to it. This is natural given Modi’s own experience in Gujarat which has a thriving dairy cooperative ecosystem.
Dairy, fisheries, livestock, poultry, horticulture and beekeeping have become important components of the rural income story. For a small farmer, diversification into allied activities is extremely beneficial.
The Modi government’s push for a Sweet Revolution is a good illustration. India’s honey production has nearly doubled over the last decade. Bees provide pollination services while apiculture gives farmers another source of income. The National Beekeeping and Honey Mission and export-support initiatives are steps in the right direction.
The logic of empowering the small farmer lies behind Farmer Producer Organisations. The small farmer does not have to necessarily become a large farmer to prosper. He needs the advantages of scale in buying inputs, accessing technology, storing and processing produce, negotiating with buyers and reaching larger markets.
The political push to make FPOs a pillar of farmer aggregation and value addition is an important part of India’s agricultural transformation. With this, the conversation and action can move to commercial viability, professional management, access to credit and technology, stronger links with processors and buyers and the ability to aggregate meaningful volumes.
Agriculture must also be seen alongside the transformation of the rural household. The distinction between rural development and agricultural development is artificial because while the farming family is a producer, it is also a rural household whose productivity depends on the quality of the environment in which it lives.
Housing, electricity, roads and drinking water have together transformed the rural environment. More than 3 crore rural houses have been completed under PMAY-G, rural tap-water coverage has risen from just 17% to over 80% under the Jal Jeevan Mission and PMGSY has brought all-weather road connectivity to more than 99% of eligible rural households. These are economic investments as much as welfare interventions. Roads connect farmers to markets and services, electricity supports irrigation and non-farm enterprise, access to tap water at home releases time particularly for women and a pucca house provides greater stability and an asset for the household.
The next phase of agriculture will be about going beyond producing more. It will be about higher-value, more nutritious and more climate-resilient agriculture.
The push for millets fits naturally into this agenda. Modi’s efforts on this front have received support from larger society as well, evidenced by the rising popularity of millets which had long been forgotten by the urban middle class.
So does the renewed emphasis on pulses and oilseeds. The Rs 11,440 crore Mission for Aatmanirbharta in Pulses, aimed at raising domestic pulse production, can improve nutritional security, reduce import dependence and contribute to healthier soils.
Modi’s idea of the farmer as both annadata and urjadata opens another promising frontier where the farmer can play a role in the sustainable energy revolution. When the farmer can produce both food and solar power, it creates an additional source of farm income while helping address India’s energy needs.
Looking back over 25 years of Modi’s work, one sees an expanding conception of agricultural development.
In Gujarat, he understood agriculture from the ground up and demonstrated that Indian agriculture could change. Over the past twelve years at the national level, many of those ideas have been taken to scale, while new and promising policy directions have also emerged.
What distinguishes Modi is the combination of first-hand experience of working with agriculture on the ground and the political imagination to think about its future, a perspective shaped over two and a half decades of public life.
(The author is Distinguished Professor, Agriculture- ICRIER (former Chairman, CACP, GoI; Director, IFPRI; member PMEAC, India))
