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By:

Parashram Patil

14 January 2026 at 8:49:45 pm

Crops of Conflict

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy. Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with...

Crops of Conflict

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy. Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with contested rivers, conflict and disrupted supply chains. For India, this presents not merely a humanitarian challenge but an opportunity to practise a more strategic form of food diplomacy. Clear Warning The Nile basin offers the clearest warning. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia depend heavily on the river, directly or indirectly, for agriculture and livelihoods. Egypt obtains roughly 90-95 percent of its water from the Nile, with most of its withdrawals going to agriculture. Wheat, rice, maize and cotton are therefore inseparable from the country's water security. Sudan is similarly dependent on the Main Nile and its Blue and White Nile tributaries for crops including sorghum, wheat, cotton and sugarcane. Ethiopia, by contrast, relies much more heavily on rain-fed agriculture, but the Blue Nile remains crucial to its plans for agricultural and economic expansion. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has transformed this already delicate equation. The Blue Nile supplies roughly 85 percent of the Nile's runoff, giving Ethiopia substantial geographical leverage upstream. Egypt and Sudan, downstream and more dependent on the river, have consequently viewed the dam through the prism of food and water security. The dispute has its roots partly in the 1959 agreement that allocated Nile waters between Egypt and Sudan, but the rise of Ethiopia as a major upstream power has altered the political balance. The stakes are enormous. A disruption to water availability is not simply an environmental problem when millions depend on irrigated agriculture. It can affect food prices, livelihoods, migration and political stability. Across the basin, the consequences potentially extend to hundreds of millions of people. The lesson is straightforward: rivers can become geopolitical infrastructure, and crops can become strategic assets. Critical Role This is where India can play a useful role. Its longstanding diplomatic, commercial and maritime links with Africa give it an established platform. Its experience in producing wheat, rice and millets, meanwhile, gives it something more tangible: the ability to contribute to food-supply resilience. Egypt, for instance, remains heavily dependent on imports and is projected to require around 13 million tonnes of wheat imports to bridge its consumption gap. Sudan’s agricultural crisis is still more acute. Conflict and climate stress have sharply reduced cereal production, leaving output well below recent historical averages. India could therefore build food diplomacy around two complementary tracks. The first is supply. Predictable grain arrangements and strategic food buffers could help vulnerable countries absorb shocks in international markets. The second is technology. India's experience with micro-irrigation, precision farming and water-use efficiency offers tools that may help African farmers produce more with less water. The Per Drop More Crop component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana is one example. Drip irrigation, improved canal management, seepage reduction and precision agriculture cannot resolve a dispute over the Nile, but they can reduce the amount of water required to produce a given crop. For this to become a durable strategy, however, India will need to move beyond individual projects. Bilateral agricultural agreements with African countries could be converted into longer-term trade corridors and grain-supply arrangements. Multilateral platforms, including BRICS, could provide mechanisms for greater transparency in food distribution and market stabilisation. Seed exchanges could focus on drought-tolerant millets, biofortified wheat and heat-resistant maize suited to increasingly volatile climates. Indian private enterprise could be brought into this architecture. Agritech startups and Farmer-Producer Organisations could be encouraged to enter African markets through export-linked grants, incubation programmes and risk-sharing mechanisms. EXIM Bank credit lines and export guarantees could reduce the financial risks of deploying solar cold chains, irrigation systems and agricultural technologies in politically volatile markets. Public-private partnerships could also help Indian firms adapt AI-based crop advisory systems and IoT-enabled water sensors to African soils and farming practices. The larger opportunity is strategic. India’s relationship with Africa need not be confined to trade, infrastructure or diplomatic declarations. Agriculture offers a practical form of South-South cooperation in which food, technology and water efficiency reinforce one another. (The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.

The Russia Squeeze

Writer: Dr. V.L. Dharurkar
Dr. V.L. Dharurkar
1 hour ago
3 min read

Washington’s new Russia sanctions give Donald Trump a powerful economic weapon, but India’s response will have to balance energy security, trade and strategic autonomy.

The United States has acquired a new weapon in its economic arsenal, and it is powerful enough to hurt more than its intended target.


The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, signed into law by President Donald Trump on September 18, gives the White House authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on countries that continue to buy Russian oil and gas. The measure also targets Russian banks, energy interests and the so-called shadow fleet of tankers used to circumvent Western sanctions. The Senate approved the legislation 86-11 in August and the House followed with a 262-159 vote this month.


Its immediate purpose is to reduce the revenues that Moscow derives from energy exports and thereby increase pressure on Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. But the legislation also turns the buyers of Russian energy, notably India and China, into potential instruments of American pressure. The result could be a complicated contest in which Washington seeks to squeeze Moscow without destabilising the global energy and trading system.


For India, Russian crude forms an important part of its energy strategy because it can be purchased at competitive prices, helping refiners manage costs and contributing to domestic price stability.


The legislation does not mean that a 100 percent tariff will automatically descend on Indian exports. It gives the President the power to impose such tariffs. That distinction leaves room for diplomacy, negotiation and exemptions. The law itself contains provisions allowing the administration to waive sanctions in certain circumstances, while its tariff provisions are designed to put pressure on countries whose purchases sustain Russian energy revenues.


Prohibitive Cost

A blanket tariff would not affect Russia alone. It would also raise the cost of doing business with countries caught in its orbit of energy trade. Indian exporters to the American market could face a severe competitive disadvantage if punitive tariffs were actually imposed.


There is an even larger question. Can sanctions designed to isolate Russia work without fragmenting the world economy further?


Washington’s argument is that countries purchasing Russian energy help finance Moscow’s war effort. The legislation’s sponsors have explicitly presented sanctions as a means of increasing pressure on Russia and bringing the war to an end. But the more countries are compelled to choose between American economic access and established energy relationships, the greater the incentive for them to develop alternative financial, trading and payment arrangements.


That is particularly significant for Russia, China and India. They are not a political bloc with identical interests, and their relationships with Washington differ sharply. Yet all three could be affected by the new American policy. China, like India, is a major purchaser of Russian energy and could face substantial consequences if Washington exercises its new tariff authority.


Russia’s energy revenues are among the foundations of its wartime economy, and Washington hopes to make the continuation of the war progressively more expensive. The new law attacks not merely individual Russian companies but some of the networks through which Moscow has maintained its energy exports despite existing sanctions.


Yet economic pressure has its own limits. Russia has spent years adapting to sanctions, redirecting trade towards Asia and developing alternative shipping and financial mechanisms. The effectiveness of another round will depend not simply on the severity of American measures but on how many countries are willing and able to participate in enforcing them.


India’s challenge is consequently one of balancing rather than choosing sides. New Delhi has little interest in becoming an instrument of Russian policy, but it has an equally strong interest in preserving affordable energy and protecting its strategic autonomy. Its response will have to combine diversification of energy supplies with sustained engagement with Washington and Moscow.


India has maintained relationships with Russia while deepening its partnership with the United States and other Western countries. The new sanctions regime will test how much room remains for that balancing act.


The larger danger is that tariffs become substitutes for diplomacy. Used indiscriminately, it can punish consumers and companies in the country imposing it as well as those in the country being targeted.


Washington’s pressure on Moscow therefore needs to be accompanied by a diplomatic strategy that recognises the interests of countries such as India and China.


(The writer is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal

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