PRAJYOT MAINKAR
I keep thinking about a maize farmer in Bihar who’s of 62, and until recently his harvest followed a depressingly familiar script – grain hauled to the mandi, weighed on scales he couldn’t trust, sold at whatever price the trader decided that morning. Generation after generation.
Sometime last year, he stopped doing that. He stores his crop in a micro-warehouse operated by a nearby agrifintech platform, monitors market prices on his phone, and uses his stock to borrow money when he needs it to buy seeds. He sells only when prices move his way. The result? 35% more income than his previous best. One farmer’s story doesn’t prove a national transformation. But multiply it across a lakh and a half of smallholders doing roughly the same thing in Bihar alone, and you’ve got something worth watching.
A regulatory overhaul
A cluster of reforms – some people call it Farm Laws 2.0, though that’s a non-official shorthand – has been reshaping how seeds, inputs, and agricultural markets work. The most tangible change so far involves seed traceability. India has seed regulation in place since 1966, and it shows. The government has now developed a centralised portal, SATHI (Seed Traceability, Authentication, and Holistic Inventory), which mandates the use of QR codes on certified seed packets. Currently, 24 states have integrated with this portal, and it is planned to be taken to all states before the Kharif season in 2026.
The trade-off, though, is real. Bigger platforms – DeHaat, AgroStar, had already invested in digital traceability and slotted right in. Smaller seed dealers and MSMEs are struggling with the compliance costs. I spoke to one outside Lucknow, a fourth-generation operation, who told me he’s spending more time on paperwork than on stocking inventory. Quality gates are necessary. But they shouldn’t accidentally become moats that only the well-funded can cross. Policymakers need to watch this carefully.
Meanwhile, the Draft National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing (NPFAM), released in late 2024, has drawn fierce opposition. It proposes designating private warehouses as sub-market yards, which sounds like efficient modernisation until you hear the other side. The ‘Samyukt Kisan Morcha’ has called it more dangerous than the three farm laws repealed in 2021. Protests have rolled through Punjab and Haryana into early 2026.
A war in the Gulf,
a crisis at the farm gate
On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran – Operation Epic Fury. Iran has been threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. About a third of the world’s seaborne fertiliser trade passes through that waterway, and India’s exposure is acute – over half its natural gas imports and a huge share of ammonia supply depend on Gulf routes. Urea prices jumped roughly 50% within three weeks. Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) crossed USD 700 a metric ton. The Indian government redirected domestic natural gas toward city gas networks, which cut into fertiliser plant output right as planting season arrived. For agri-input startups built on the promise of reliable delivery, it’s been a scramble. Farmers willing to pay premiums still can’t be sure their orders will show up.
Rural demand holds, for now
Despite all that, rural India isn’t buckling. Reports show FMCG volumes in rural markets grew by more than 80% in early 2026, comfortably ahead of urban areas. Real rural wages hit multi-year highs by mid-2025. The countryside has been carrying the economy while urban consumers wrestle with EMI burdens and food inflation.
But that resilience has an expiry date. Early forecasts put the probability of El Nino conditions during the 2026 monsoon at around 60%. A weak monsoon layered on top of an energy crisis would hit yields, squeeze incomes, and unwind the rural demand story faster than anyone in the planning commission would like to admit.
The agritech response
Credit where it’s due – the startup ecosystem has responded with more discipline than theatrics this time around. DeHaat just crossed 3000 crore in gross revenue for FY25, clocking an 11% year-on-year jump, and even turned EBITDA-positive in the first quarter of FY26. Meanwhile, Ninjacart has stepped back from the growth-at-any-cost playbook and rolled out micro-fulfilment centres that have brought food waste down below 4%, against a national average hovering around thirty.
Arya.ag is managing upwards of 12,000 decentralised warehouses, turning stored grain into a digital asset farmers can borrow against instead of panic-selling.On the institutional side, the government’s PACS computerisation project – with an outlay now approaching 3000 crore rupees – has brought over 50,000 cooperative societies onto a common ERP platform. And the VB G-RAM-G Act, which received presidential assent in December 2025, replaced MGNREGA with a framework guaranteeing 125 workdays per rural household. The 60-day seasonal pause is intended to keep farm labour available during sowing and harvest. Critics have raised valid questions about the shift from demand-driven entitlements to normative allocations and the added fiscal burden on states. These deserve transparent answers.
Where this goes
We should always be cautious about grand narratives in Indian agriculture. Every few years, someone declares a revolution, only for the monsoon or bureaucracy to throw in complications that no one had modelled for.
But something does feel different this time. The digital plumbing is actually getting built. The warehouses are real, not just pitch-deck graphics. Farmers in Kalyanpur, for instance, are making decisions with data that used to be hoarded by middlemen.
Whether these foundations hold up against a Gulf war, an uncertain monsoon, and the sheer complexity of governing agriculture across this subcontinent – that’s the question nobody can answer yet.
