Parashram Patil

Treating farmer health as capital could help unlock the next phase of Indian agricultural growth. India’s agricultural story has long been told through the language of inputs, usually better seeds, more irrigation or improved market access. These levers powered the Green Revolution and continue to underpin policy. But as farming confronts climate volatility, it is time to take a hard look at the cost of human labour, long regarded as a constant. The health of farmers is typically filed under...

For a country that still depends on the monsoon, India has grown surprisingly dependent on the Middle East. Not for rain, but for the fuel and fertilizers that keep its farms running. In an era of proliferating conflicts, especially the chronic instability across West Asia as evinced by the Iran conflict, that dependence is proving costly. The connection between geopolitics and the price of tomatoes in Pune is no longer abstract. When tensions flare in the Gulf, crude prices spike, gas...

India’s dependence on West Asian fertiliser routes has turned the Iran war into a domestic agricultural risk. When geopolitics intrudes upon agriculture, the consequences are measured in delayed sowing, rising costs and anxious farmers scanning uncertain skies. With no sign of the ongoing Iran war receding anytime soon, the prospect of a prolonged disruption in fertiliser supply, particularly through the narrow maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, poses a tangible threat to India’s...