Insurance Against Distant Wars

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 shipments falter and fertilizer markets convulse. India, which imports roughly 85–90 percent of its crude oil and a significant share of its liquefied natural gas, is forced to absorb the shock. The result is higher costs of cultivation, squeezed farm margins and, eventually, more expensive food.

The vulnerability is structural. Fertilizers like urea, diammonium phosphate and potash are either imported outright or produced using imported feedstock. India sources nearly all its potash from abroad and remains heavily reliant on global markets for other nutrients. Add to this the fact that about a fifth of India’s imports pass through the narrow choke-point of the Strait of Hormuz, and the scale of exposure becomes clear.

Recent events have underscored the point. During bouts of heightened tension in 2026, fertilizer prices surged by as much as 50 percent, gas shortages disrupted domestic urea production and fuel costs remained stubbornly volatile. Farmers, already operating on thin margins, felt the pinch immediately. Fertilizers account for as much as 30 percent of cultivation costs in some crops; diesel adds another 10–15 percent. A modest rise in input prices can wipe out profitability altogether. When farmers cut back on usage to cope, their yields suffer.

The policy response, thus far, has been to cushion the blow. Fertilizer subsidies, which now run into nearly Rs. 2 lakh crore annually, are designed to shield farmers from global price swings. Yet subsidies are, at best, a palliative. They entrench the very system that makes agriculture vulnerable.

Reducing Exposure

A more radical approach would be to reduce exposure altogether. This is where natural farming, often dismissed as an ecological indulgence, begins to look like a form of geopolitical insurance.

At its core, natural farming replaces imported, industrial inputs with locally produced alternatives like bio-fertilisers, compost and microbial solutions. It reduces reliance on diesel-intensive practices and, by improving soil health, enhances water retention and resilience. The economic implications are striking. Input costs can fall by 60–80 percent, thus insulating farmers from global price shocks. When fertilizers are no longer purchased on international markets, their volatility ceases to matter.

More importantly, natural farming breaks the transmission mechanism through which geopolitical shocks ripple into domestic food systems. In a conventional model, a disruption in gas supply raises fertilizer prices, which raises cultivation costs, which reduces application, which lowers yields, which pushes up food prices. In a natural-farming system, that chain is severed at the outset. If inputs are local and largely costless, global disruptions lose their bite.

This has macroeconomic consequences. Were even a quarter of India’s cultivated land to shift towards such practices, fertilizer imports could fall sharply, easing pressure on the current account. Subsidy burdens would shrink, freeing up fiscal space. Most importantly, food inflation - a most politically sensitive indicators in the country - would become less hostage to events beyond India’s control.

Sceptics will, rightly, raise concerns about yields. India’s Green Revolution was built on the promise of abundance, and any alternative must demonstrate that it can sustain production. The evidence on natural farming remains uneven, with results varying by crop, region and implementation. Yet this is a question of calibration, not dismissal. Even partial adoption focused on less input-intensive crops or regions could deliver significant risk-reduction benefits without jeopardising output.

Food security in the 20th century was about producing enough grain and distributing it efficiently. In the 21st, it is about ensuring that production systems can withstand shocks, whether climatic or geopolitical. By that standard, India’s current model looks brittle. It delivers high output, but at the cost of high exposure.

Natural farming offers lower input intensity, greater local autonomy and reduced vulnerability to external shocks. It does not eliminate risk - no system can - but it changes its nature. Instead of being buffeted by distant wars and volatile markets, farmers operate within a more stable, locally anchored framework.

In a world where geopolitics increasingly intrudes into the mundane, that stability has value. For India’s farms, natural farming is a hedge against the uncertainties of a turbulent world.

(The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.)