-Mahesh Zagade
If one must truly understand the story of Indian agriculture, it is imperative not to begin merely from Independence in 1947, nor even from the colonial plunder that preceded it, but from the very dawn of human civilization itself. The history of farming is not just the history of a profession — it is the story of humanity’s most defining revolution.
For nearly 200,000 years of Homo sapiens’ existence, our ancestors, like every other creature on Earth, wandered in forests and grasslands, gathering what nature offered or hunting what their tools permitted. Their relationship with food was purely transactional, dictated by nature’s whims and the body’s hunger.
And then came a miraculous rupture in this continuum.
Some 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, a quiet yet monumental transformation began — humankind, in scattered patches across the globe, ceased its restless wanderings and chose to stay. The pursuit of food gave way to the cultivation of food. Thus began agriculture — the first great revolution. Alongside it emerged animal domestication, the concept of food storage, and eventually, the early institutions of governance to regulate surplus and scarcity. Agriculture, then, is not merely a livelihood — it is the origin of civilization.
For millennia thereafter, agriculture formed the bedrock of human sustenance, sovereignty, and social order. In India, this legacy was particularly profound. For nearly two millennia, India thrived as a global economic powerhouse, largely due to its agrarian strength. Crops, cotton, spices, and grain fed not only its own population but fueled international trade.
Then came the storm.
The Colonial Erosion
By the mid-18th century, the First Industrial Revolution had begun reshaping the West. For India, however, it marked the start of a systematic decimation. The arrival of the British altered our economic architecture beyond recognition. India’s agrarian structure — once productive and resilient — was uprooted and recast into a tool of imperial extraction. Agrarian output was diverted, taxed, and monetized to fund imperial ambitions. Between famines and forced cultivation, India was reduced from a net exporter of grain to a net importer of misery.
By 1700, we were still the world’s largest economy by GDP share. A century and a half later, we were among the poorest.
Post-Independence: The Policy Reawakening
When India awakened to freedom in 1947, it bore the scars of colonial exploitation — 34 crore people, many malnourished; a mere 50 million tonnes of food grain production; and an agrarian sector on life support.
To their enduring credit, Prime Minister Nehru and his contemporaries placed agriculture at the very heart of national planning. The First Five-Year Plan (1951) had one resounding motto: agricultural development. And from this blueprint rose a nation committed to feeding itself.
Today, India produces over 310 million tonnes of food grains, a six-fold increase, even as the population has grown four times since Independence. This is a silent triumph — not of technology alone, but of human resilience and public policy.
Yet, beneath this statistical success lies a profound and painful irony: agriculture has progressed, but the farmer has not.
The Disquieting Paradox
Let us look at the numbers.
In 1950-51, agriculture accounted for over 51% of India’s GDP, and employed over 70% of its population — a fair alignment of economic contribution and livelihood dependency.
Fast forward to today: nearly 54-55% of Indians are still dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, but agriculture’s contribution to GDP has plummeted to 17-18%. In Maharashtra, the situation is even starker — 45% of the population relies on agriculture, but the sector contributes a mere 10% to the state’s GDP.
This is the very definition of structural imbalance.
It means low per capita income, chronic indebtedness, and a profession where the freedom to determine the price of one’s own produce — a basic economic right — is denied to farmers.
In contrast, India’s manufacturing and services sectors — contributing 90% of GDP — have the liberty to price their goods and services, adjusting for cost, inflation, and profit margins.
Why is the farmer denied this same dignity?
The Next 25 Years: A Fork in the Furrow
As we look to the next quarter-century, a sobering reality confronts us: India cannot replicate the Western model.
In the United States and Europe, economic evolution allowed surplus rural populations to migrate into industrial or service jobs. As agriculture became mechanised and corporatized, fewer people produced more food. GDP aligned with employment.
But India now stands on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and machine learning threaten to reduce job availability even in the very sectors — manufacturing and services — where surplus agricultural labour was once expected to be absorbed.
The window has closed.
India and Maharashtra must now confront a truth that no amount of rhetoric can mask — the agrarian population must be made economically viable within agriculture itself. The only way forward is to increase the value derived by farmers from the same land and the same produce.
How?
Beyond Yields: Towards Value and Freedom
Increasing productivity alone will not suffice. The need of the hour is value addition through processing, agro-industrial linkages, and pricing freedom.
If a farmer produces tomatoes, let him earn not just from the crop but also from its transformation into puree, sauce, or dehydrated products. This cannot happen until we build agro-processing clusters, improve rural logistics, and — most importantly — grant the farmer the right to price his produce profitably.
To this end, one innovative policy suggestion has been proposed: a shift from the current Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime to a more dynamic and empowering concept of First Trade Minimum Price (FTMP). Under this model, the farmer sets the floor — the price below which the first transaction of the crop cannot legally take place.
Such a system will not burden the exchequer as MSP does, and will give the farmer control over his own economic destiny.
What Ails Us is Not Technology, But Willpower
Let there be no illusions — India has the technological and institutional capacity to transform agriculture into a profitable, dignified, and sustainable profession. What it lacks is the political imagination and the administrative will.
Governments must stop viewing agriculture as a sector in perpetual need of subsidy and start treating it as a sector capable of investment, innovation, and income generation.
Policies must aim to equalize the liberties of the farmer with those enjoyed by the industrialist. If profit is not a dirty word in the boardroom, it must not be a crime in the barnyard.
The Clock is Ticking
If we fail to act, the consequences will be unforgiving. Farmers, dispossessed and disillusioned, will abandon their fields not out of choice but compulsion. Agriculture will pass into the hands of the wealthy, the corporate, and the absentee owner. The very foundation of food sovereignty will erode.
Already, we are witnessing this migration — not just of labour, but of land ownership, away from the marginal farmer and towards large agribusinesses.
What lies ahead, then, is not just an economic challenge, but a civilizational crossroad.
The Soul of the Soil
For India, agriculture is not merely an economic sector — it is a civilizational anchor, a cultural identity, and a social glue. To preserve its relevance and reward its keepers is not just an economic imperative, but a moral obligation.
The next 25 years will define whether we emerge as a nation of equitable growth or one of concentrated wealth and abandoned fields.
The farmer does not ask for charity. He asks for justice — in policy, in price, and in respect.
It is time we give it to him.
Mahesh Zagade, IASx 