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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.

They can be your ele-friends

Writer: Aditi Pai
Aditi Pai
Jan 25, 2025
5 min read

Updated: Jan 27, 2025

Anand Shinde

Elephant whisperer Anand Shinde has calmed, rescued and rehabilitated numerous elephants in the past 12 years and his The Trunk Call Foundation works towards creating awareness on these magnificent creatures who are the “architects and engineers” of the jungle


“If you keep them in your hearts, they will give you elephant-sized love but if you attack them, then you are in equally big trouble,” is what elephant whisperer Anand Shinde loves to say when you ask him about elephant personalities and their temperament. For farmers, they are known as trouble-makers who rampage through their fields; for the devout they are a real physical incarnation of Ganesh, the elephant god; in temples, they are used as mere props for religious festivities but for those like Shinde, who work with them closely, elephants are beautiful, intelligent and extremely loving animals.


Shinde is a photojournalist-turned-elephant whisperer who rumbles in tones that elephants can catch, understand and respond to. He even talks to them in Marathi and while there’s little evidence that the elephants understand words, they understand his rumbles, his tone and tenor and his vibrations. His first brush with elephants happened in 2012 when he was transferred to Kerala as a photographer with an English daily newspaper. A senior photojournalist advised him to shoot the magnificent elephant and Shinde started making trips to the forests. And that’s where love struck.


He started communicating with the elephants by using sounds, listening to them and devised a communication method that only he and the animal can understand. His first experience with talking to an elephant was in 2012 when he was assigned to communicate with two elephant calves, Krushna and Ganga at an elephant centre in Kodanad in Kerala. The communication was successful and Shinde chose to give up his career for a new profession that has seen him live in forests, away from the bustling life of a journalist in Mumbai.

What is elephant whispering?

It is communication with elephants. On a photoshoot assignment, I started observing the behavioural patterns of elephants. I heard the sounds they make which are rumbling sounds and when I started rumbling, they could communicate with me.

How was your first brush with communication?

I had to meet baby elephants Krishna and Ganga at an elephant centre in Kodanad. While Krishna made friends with me instantly and would play with me all day long, Ganga would get possessive each time my wife called. They have the same expressions and emotions as us. Once an elephant got upset with me because my wife had accompanied me and he turned around and stood with his back to me. For them, I am entirely theirs and they don’t like to share my attention with anyone else.

What is the law of the jungle?

When we, as lay people, say that they can hear an ‘animal call’ is nothing but communication among animals and birds in a jungle. It’s the communication of the deer to everyone else; it is about monkeys cautioning all others who can become prey for tigers and lions. They communicate with each other in a bid to warn and caution of the approaching danger. They have beautiful relationships and communication patterns in the jungle where everything is in sync with each other. I’ve seen the sambal deer stand near elephants and they are friends. But carnivorous animals avoid elephants. In the jungle, you can see tigers walk parallel to elephants but they usually don’t cross paths. If an elephant is drinking water, tigers will move away. Tigers don't kill elephants even if they are weak. That’s how the jungle law is. There are ethics and rules.


The elephant is known as the architect and the engineer of the jungle. Why is that?

The are the architects and the engineers because an entire ecosystem is dependent on the elephant. Just one piece of elephant dung contains 17 to 7,000 species of microorganisms that act as excellent manure. When an elephant walks, the pugmarks loosen the mud on the ground and earthworms, bees and butterflies can thrive there. Similarly, there are numerous species that thrive because of elephants. If the elephant dies or leaves a jungle, the ecosystem will be impacted.

What are elephants like temperamentally?

Elephants rarely fight amongst themselves. They have a matriarchal system where multiple females come together to take care of the baby and never fight. Elephants are also very emotional and expressive. If you give them love, they will reward you with immense affection. But why do they become angry and aggressive? Only when people attack them. For animals, attack is the best form of defence when they are threatened. Mahouts are known to beat and poke them. There is a hulla gang that’s used in some parts who throw firecrackers or attack elephants. When these animals get angry, forest authorities chain them and then that naturally leads to a build up of anger and aggression. I am the only person in the world to have calmed down a Grade 4 angry elephant.


Do you ever feel fear in the jungle?

The only animal to fear is humans. I have never felt fear. In Kerela, I was once called to ask a lioness to reveal where she had hidden her cubs. This was to ensure the cubs were healthy. I spoke to her in Marathi; she obviously didn’t understand the words but she understood my vibrations and energy and what I was saying. After some time, she brought her cubs out for the forest officers to see. I was also called to calm down an angry tiger who was in a cage. In the jungle, I have walked with elephants with tigers barely 50 meters away. I respect their space and they respect mine.


It's said that elephants have a massive memory. Is that true?

They can recognise you even from seven kilometers away and can remember you even if you meet after several years. I had once got a call from forest officers saying that the elephant had given up on life. I went there to condolences the death of two of his friends because elephants always condole the death of their loved ones and from their herd. They spend 24 hours near the dead and cover the body with grass, leaves and flowers so that no other animal should eat it. Once the body starts decomposing, they leave. If a baby elephant dies, the mother sits by its side for a week without eating. And if elephants ever come back to the site where one of their own has died, they look for the bones and hug them. That’s how they are as animals.


Can the elephant-human conflict be resolved?

We see it happening where we have trespassed into the jungles and destroyed their natural habitat. Elephants venture into fields in search of food and water; they have no interest in eating crops or causing destruction. People then throw crackers at them or shoot them and then they get aggressive. To counter this, we need a holistic approach where we keep their areas safe with the natural habitat. By blending scientific methods with local engagement, we ensure harmony between humans, elephants, and their ecosystems.


You’ve worked on a research paper – “Communicating with Elephants – A Discovery" at the International Symposium on Ecology and Health Management of Asiatic Elephants. What are the key findings of your research?


The alarming statistics reveal that one elephant loses its life every 15 minutes, putting this majestic species at serious risk of extinction.

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