Next Farm Revolution: Farmers' Incomes and Agrivoltaics

The Lift Line

“Atmanirbharta (self-sufficiency) in pulses and oilseeds cannot be achieved unless the incentive package for these crops matches that for rice and wheat.” (Ashok Gulati, The Indian Express, 12 October 2026)

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

This is a signed column in The Indian Express of 12 October 2026, so the argument and its figures are the author’s own. Ashok Gulati is a distinguished professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). He takes a milestone, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “has completed 25 years in public service”, as the occasion to review farm performance and to name two challenges: the crop basket and farmers’ incomes. The praise of the record is Gulati’s assessment; read every number below as his figure.

Read it with our related pages: Gulati and Subhodeep Basu on solar as the farmer’s third crop under PM-KUSUM, rice stocks and ethanol, onion price volatility and farmers, the rabi campaign and foodgrain target, rabi MSP for 2027-28 and the edible oil duty cut and NMEO-Oilseeds.

GS Paper 3: Major crops and cropping patterns; irrigation; direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; public distribution system, buffer stocks and food security; conservation (groundwater); energy (solar). Essay: farmers’ welfare and sustainable agriculture. Prelims: PM-KUSUM components, PM Surya Ghar support, the Dalwai Committee, agri-photovoltaics.

In the news: in a column in The Indian Express on 12 October 2026, Ashok Gulati of ICRIER argues that India’s next farm revolution must aim at significantly raising farmers’ incomes, by paying farmers to shift from paddy to pulses and oilseeds and by scaling agri-photovoltaics through a reworked PM-KUSUM.

Background and Context

Gulati’s scorecard (his figures, as he states them).

The schemes in the argument.

The Dalwai Committee.

The two are different measures: one is the income of farmers, the other is the output of the whole sector. Gulati and Ranjana Roy, writing in Seminar, gave the committee’s figure as growth in farmers’ real incomes; cite it that way in answers.

The Analysis

1. The peg is a milestone, not an event. Gulati writes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “has completed 25 years in public service” and uses it to review agriculture in Gujarat and at the all-India level. The judgement on that record is his.

2. The Gujarat story, as Gulati tells it. “Gujarat agriculture experienced a miracle, registering growth of more than 9 per cent per annum.” He credits water for irrigation through check dams and Narmada waters, and power reform: “He also separated feeder lines for irrigation and rural households to ensure that power reached farmers on time for irrigation.” Exam use: separate feeder lines are a useful example in answers on farm power supply.

3. From drought to surplus. India faced droughts in 2014 and 2015; “Back-to-back droughts had occurred only three times in a century.” Irrigation and crop insurance (PM Fasal Bima Yojana) followed, and Gulati puts the irrigated share at almost 60 per cent of gross cropped area. India, he writes, “has emerged as the largest producer and exporter of rice”, and even after free grain holds “buffer stocks that are more than four times the norm for rice and almost three times that for wheat”.

4. A steady but modest record. “India is also a net exporter of agricultural products.” Gulati puts agricultural GDP growth at 4 per cent a year on average from 2014-15 to 2025-26: lower than in Gujarat, but good enough, he says, “especially when population growth is below 1 per cent”.

5. Challenge one: the wrong crop basket. “We have too much rice and wheat and too few pulses and oilseeds.” There is so much rice, he writes, that almost 7 million tonnes of it is now planned for ethanol. His verdict: “This is perverse as the net energy balance is negative, as is the economics.”

6. Why farmers stay with paddy, and his fix. ICRIER research, Gulati writes, shows that paddy in the Punjab-Haryana belt draws input subsidies on power, fertilisers and canal irrigation of almost Rs 40,000 per hectare. He would reward pulses and oilseeds growers with about Rs 35,000 per hectare, to relieve pressure on groundwater. “This would not impose an additional burden on the exchequer”, he argues, because the States would save on power and canal irrigation and the Centre on fertiliser subsidy. He asks for a programme “on a 50:50 basis, at least in Haryana, where the water table has been receding by 1.7 feet each year”.

7. Challenge two: incomes. Doubling farmers’ real incomes, Gulati writes, remains unfulfilled. The usual route is diversification, “be it fisheries, poultry, milk, fruits or vegetables”: perishables that need efficient value chains and links to high-income consumers. On the Dalwai Committee’s 10.4 per cent, see the note under Background.

8. The big idea: agri-photovoltaics. In agri-PV, “a farmer is an annadata as well as an urjadata”, a provider of both food and energy. Solar panels sit “at a height of about 10 to 11 feet, with adequate spacing to allow photosynthesis in the crops grown below”. Gulati says an ICRIER pilot in Rajasthan has raised a farmer’s income eight to 10 times. In his earlier column with Subhodeep Basu, the same pilot appears as a 600 kW project that raised potential income from about Rs 40,000 per acre to nearly Rs 4 lakh: a pilot result, not a national average.

9. The policy ask: Surya Khet Kranti. He wants the government to “tweak the PM-KUSUM scheme along the lines of the PM-Surya Ghar scheme, provide the same subsidy, and ensure a feed-in tariff at even half the cost of supplying power to rural areas under the traditional setup”. The result, he suggests, could be a new revolution, perhaps called Surya Khet Kranti, on the lines of Operation Flood in milk. It is a proposal, not a scheme.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

• PM-KUSUM Component A: grid-connected solar or other renewable plants of up to 2 MW on farmers’ land; power sold to discoms; no capital subsidy.
• PM-KUSUM Component B: standalone off-grid solar pumps.
• PM-KUSUM Component C: solarisation of grid-connected pumps, including feeder-level solarisation.
• PM Surya Ghar central support: Rs 30,000 per kW for the first 2 kW and Rs 18,000 for the third; Rs 78,000 at most.
• Dalwai Committee: Committee on Doubling Farmers’ Income, chaired by Ashok Dalwai; constituted April 2016; 14 volumes.
• Dalwai target: farmers’ real incomes to grow at a compound annual rate of 10.4 per cent, to double by 2022-23.
• Agri-photovoltaics: solar panels raised above crops (about 10 to 11 feet, in Gulati’s design) so one plot yields food and power.
• Feed-in tariff: the price paid for power a producer feeds into the grid; Gulati wants it at even half the cost of rural supply.
• ICRIER: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.

⚠️ Watch the trap: The Dalwai Committee’s 10.4 per cent is the growth needed in farmers’ real incomes, not in agricultural GDP. Component A of PM-KUSUM is for farmers’ power plants of up to 2 MW; pumps fall under B and C. Surya Khet Kranti is Gulati’s proposed name, not a government scheme. The Rajasthan gain is a pilot result, not a national figure.

The Debate

How to Think About This

Separate the record from the review. A column that marks a leader’s milestone mixes evaluation with evidence. Use its policy logic (incentives, water, energy) in answers, and attribute its numbers to the author.

Keep income and output apart. Food security is about tonnes of grain; farmers’ welfare is about rupees in the farmer’s hand. A country can have both surplus stocks and stagnant farm incomes, which is the gap Gulati wants the next revolution to close.

Think in incentives. Farmers in the Punjab-Haryana belt grow paddy because it pays, Gulati argues, and much of that pay comes from subsidised inputs. Exhortation will not change the crop mix; changing relative returns might. Agri-PV, in turn, is a land-use idea as much as an energy idea: one plot, two harvests.

For GS3, use this on cropping patterns, farm subsidies, food security, groundwater and solar energy. For the Essay, it supplies a frame: from food security to income security.

Diagram-in-Words

Takeaway Box

• Lift line: “Atmanirbharta (self-sufficiency) in pulses and oilseeds cannot be achieved unless the incentive package for these crops matches that for rice and wheat.”
• The argument: food security in staples is won; the next challenges are a crop basket tilted towards rice and wheat, and farmers’ incomes. Gulati’s fixes: pay farmers to shift from paddy to pulses and oilseeds, and scale agri-photovoltaics through a reworked PM-KUSUM.
• Prelims hooks: PM-KUSUM Components A, B and C; PM Surya Ghar (Rs 78,000 at most); Dalwai Committee (10.4 per cent growth in farmers’ real incomes); agri-photovoltaics.
• Ethics and interview angle: should public money keep subsidising inputs for a surplus crop, or pay farmers to grow what the country imports?
• Probable Mains question: “India has achieved food security in staples, but farmers’ incomes have lagged. Discuss how realigning crop incentives and agri-photovoltaics could raise farm incomes.”

Revision Flowchart

Sources: The Indian Express, column by Ashok Gulati on the next farm revolution and farmers’ incomes (12 October 2026); Seminar 701, Ashok Gulati and Ranjana Roy, “Wooing the farmer”; Ujiyari, agrivoltaics and PM-KUSUM Component A; Ujiyari, onion price volatility and the Dalwai Committee.

Source: Next Farm Revolution: Farmers' Incomes and Agrivoltaics — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis