Nestled in a remote area in the southeast of Punjab, one small farm is quietly challenging the regional status quo. (At their request for online anonymity, I will not disclose its name or the identities of those present.)
The principal owner and founder of the farm (whom I’ll refer to as ‘S’) began his self-described permaculture project six years ago. While, on the surface, the landscape surrounding S’s farm appears to be serene and lush, interspersed with vibrant stretches of mustard fields, patchworks of rice paddies, and small Gurdwaras and temples, it is currently facing stark challenges.
For several decades, farmers in neighboring villages have heavily relied on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and subsidized groundwater pumps to maintain yields of predominantly wheat and rice monocultures. Now, they are increasingly facing the consequences of these production methods: rapid groundwater depletion, soil erosion, and a broader agrarian livelihood crisis marked by declining farm incomes and increasing rural outmigration. These challenges are only compounded by burdens of debt and the increasing threats and variability posed by climate change.
This stands in sharp contrast to S’s farm, which in just over six years, has flourished with introduction of permaculture-aligned principles and practices. The farm currently consists of fields of vegetables, herbs, mustard, millets, and other grains, interspersed with orchard trees. A large man-made pond supports water management, while rainwater harvesting systems, natural wastewater treatment units, vermicomposting sites, dozens of beehives, and a large chicken coop further enhance the farm’s ability to cycle nutrients, and sustain a diverse, closed-loop system.
Small kitchen gardens—for herbs and vegetables like peas, string beans, and tomatoes—and a natural woodworking and craft studio, where local artisans build the farm’s furniture and operate a small-scale artisanal business—complement the farm and enhance its overall capacity for self-reliance.
The farm is sustained by the knowledge, labor, and dedication of eight local farmers who make up the full-time staff, along with rotating volunteer work exchangers (my own pathway of involvement), and continued support from S’s family and friends.
But this vision has taken time to realize; the farm only reached profitability in the past year. Four small cottages, offering an ‘eco-tourism’ escapes for primarily wealthy guests, have provided the property’s main source of income. The craftsmen studios also facilitate a strong supplemental business, which has supported the other project works and allowed S’ agricultural vision to manifest.
S originally sought to grow food for self-sufficiency in a quiet, rural district of his ancestral state. Having grown up feeling somewhat out of place in what he described as “hyper-urban Delhi” to Punjabi parents, his primary aspiration was to cultivate an autonomous refuge for he and his family. However, soon after settling and beginning his project, he realized his pursuit would be largely shaped by the broader contextual challenges faced by the surrounding villagers. As he worked to reintroduce organic, small-scale farming practices in a region shaped by the legacy of Green Revolution technologies and the government mandi system, he encountered both ideological resistance and economic barriers to integrating and scaling this model in the community. (2)
As a work-exchange volunteer, I had the opportunity to engage in critical dialogue about these subjects and pose questions about the lived experiences of S and his team of farmers. It offered a valuable opportunity to reflect on the agricultural policy issues that first drew me to India—particularly Minimum Support Price (MSP)—and to grapple with the systemic and local challenges that often make organic, diversified farming economically unfeasible for smallholder farmers, especially in the short term. S’s own struggles for profitability, along with his farmers’ ongoing difficulty accessing markets, ultimately became the central theme of my brief visit. Additionally, the tensions around resource access, financial risk-taking, and initial investment capacity between S and his farmers were particularly pronounced, emphasizing the precarity of transitioning to sustainable practices without institutional support.
While I had moments to speak with the farmers one-on-one while working alongside them during my brief visit, halfway through my stay, S invited me to participate in a more formal, critical dialogue with his core team about their perceptions of switching to organic agricultural practices. S asked me to help facilitate the conversation from the perspective of policy incentives and disincentives, with a particular focus on MSP.
S has been organizing these semi-formal dialogues for several months, bringing his eight-member farmer team together to share candidly about their hesitations, aspirations, and perceived barriers to adopting ecologically based farming methods. S explained that only after more than five years of learning and working together, have the farmers felt comfortable speaking openly about these issues.
He emphasized that he has observed a gradual shift in their curiosity and attitudes toward permaculture and agroecology, especially as they have become increasingly skilled in cultivating using associated techniques—such as polyculture planting, natural pest management, rainwater harvesting, and compost-based soil restoration. His underlying goal in facilitating these dialogues has been to understand the very real challenges his farmers and their families continue to face, so he can support them in transitioning away from intensive, chemically dependent agricultural practices.
Before this discussion, S and I had our own debrief about the entanglements and tensions of the MSP system—crucial context that helps explain the circumstances shaping the lives not just of S’s team of eight farmers, but of millions across India, especially in the North…
Unpacking MSP – What is the Mandi System and Why Does it Matter to Farmers?
The Minimum Support Price (MSP) system refers to a government-declared price floor that aims to shield farmers from distress sales by ensuring they receive a minimum income for certain crops.
It was introduced in India in 1965, alongside the formation of the Agricultural Prices Commission (now the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices), as a policy tool to guarantee farmers a baseline price per quintal key staples—particularly wheat and paddy. Under this system, government agencies such as the Food Corporation of India (FCI) procure grains through state-run Agricultural Produce Market Committees (mandis) at a fixed minimum rate. This theoretically ensures that farmers receive at least an enough to cover their costs of production. (3)
Emerging at the height of the Green Revolution, MSP was intended to stimulate domestic grain production and to protect farmers from market volatility. For decades, the system succeeded in providing some income stability to farmers. When market prices fall below the MSP, the government can step in to purchase the crops at the guaranteed rate. This not only secures farmers a base income but also supports the creation of public food stockpiles. In states like Punjab and Haryana, where consistent procurement enabled steady cash flow for farmers, the model transformed the agricultural sector and mandis eventually became the principal buyer for a majority of farmers.
However, since its inception, the MSP regime has gradually shifted from a market-oriented safety net to a mechanism used primarily for large-scale procurement of wheat and rice. This shift was further reinforced by the National Food Security Act of 2013, which mandated the distribution of heavily subsidized grains through India’s federal Public Distribution System. To meet these obligations, agencies like the Food Corporation of India increasingly prioritized the bulk procurement of rice and wheat— embedding a structural bias toward these two crops within the policy framework.
Evidence of this procurement imbalance is clear in the disproportionate acquisition patterns in the mandi system. Although MSP is officially declared for 23 crops, including pulses, oilseeds, and coarse grains, over 85-90% of total procurement is concentrated in just rice and wheat. According to FCI reports, during the 2021-22 Rabi season, the government procured more than 57 million tonnes of rice and 44 million tonnes of wheat, while procurement of other MSP crops remained relatively minimal. For example, only 6.5 lakh (650,000) tonnes of coarse cereals such as maize, bajra, and jowar were procured, and just 2.04 million tonnes of pulses, such as chana (gram) and masoor (lentil). As a result, farmers cultivating these traditionally important staple crops remain dependent on volatile open-market prices. Crucially, the rice and wheat varieties that dominate procurement are high-yielding but non-native, with relatively intensive water demands and poor adaptability—especially when compared to drought-tolerant traditional crops such as pulses and grains.
The Shanta Kumar Committee (High-Level Federal Committee) also revealed that only 6% of Indian farmers benefit directly from MSP procurement, with the majority of beneficiaries concentrated in Punjab, Haryana, and parts of western Uttar Pradesh. Farmers in states such as Bihar, Odisha, and Maharashtra—who also grow MSP-notified crops—often receive little to no procurement support due to weak mandi infrastructure and limited access to reliable procurement centers.
Debates around the MSP system reached national headlines in 2020 during what the media widely referred to as the “Indian Farmer Uprising”—one of the largest and longest non-violent, occupy-style protest movements in modern history. The mass mobilization of millions, marked by sit-ins, road blockades, and coordinated strikes, were a direct response to the central government’s introduction of three controversial farm laws. These laws aimed to deregulate agricultural markets by allowing private entities to bypass state-regulated mandi and engage in direct trade or contract farming arrangements with smallholders, without offering MSP guarantees.
While the government argued that the 2020 farm laws would boost market competition and offer farmers better prices, protesters contended that without a legal guarantee requiring private buyers to pay at least the MSP, farmers—especially in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, where wheat and rice cultivation is closely tied to MSP—stood to lose their only reliable price safety net. Although many acknowledged the shortcomings and uneven implementation of the existing MSP system, they feared that dismantling or weakening it would leave them fully exposed to volatile market prices. In such a scenario, frequent price fluctuations and the disproportionate bargaining power of corporations could further erode already-precarious farm incomes.
Ultimately, sustained protests pressured the government to repeal the laws in November 2021. Yet the movement exposed deeper structural flaws in India’s agricultural pricing system. Farmers demanded not only the retention of MSP but also its legal codification and universal application across all crops—as a safeguard for their precarious livelihoods and a buffer against future exploitation. Protests have since resurfaced, and MSP remains a contentious issue nationwide, particularly during election years.
The current MSP system in India reveals a structural contradiction. On one hand, MSP remains a lifeline for farmers, guaranteeing a baseline income for their crops. Without it, many would be forced to sell to corporate buyers—often transnational firms—who can dictate prices below the cost of production. This scenario echoes the U.S. farm crisis of the 1980s, which contributed to the collapse of family farms across rural America.
On the other hand, the crops supported under MSP are predominantly non-native, annual seeds owned by agribusiness firms, which are highly resource-intensive. Farmers are incentivized—often compelled—to cultivate wheat and rice varieties that rely on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and subsidized electric water pumps, leading to the over-extraction of groundwater. Meanwhile, traditional crops like millets, pulses, oilseeds, and other horticultural varieties, better suited to the region’s climate and nutritional needs, remain marginalized. This not only accelerates land degradation and deepens Punjab’s water crisis but also imposes severe health consequences: the widespread use of agrichemicals has been linked to a troubling rise in cancer rates among farmers.
In the absence of guaranteed incentives, expanded procurement networks, and substantial structural reforms, this cycle perpetuates itself, exacerbating the vulnerability of farmers who continue to bear the most severe consequences.
In Dialouge with Farmers
During our formal discussion, the farmers shared that they are almost entirely dependent on selling their crops—primarily input-intensive rice paddy and/or wheat—annually to the government mandi (procurement center) at the MSP. They rely on a lump-sum income of ₹40,000–₹50,000 (around $475–550 USD) twice a year, received only after selling their cash crops at the mandi. Strikingly, nearly one-fifth of that income is spent on the chemical fertilizers and pesticides required to cultivate the crop varieties supported by the government—an extractive and costly cycle that all of them acknowledged.
Each of the farmers works Monday through Saturday, from 8 to 5, on S’s permaculture farm. Over the past five years, they have become experts in organic, diversified farming practices through hands-on experience. Some have even earned formal certifications in beekeeping and vermicomposting, sponsored by S. Despite their confidence in organic cultivation, however, they and their families remain deeply apprehensive about applying these methods to their own 2–10 acres of land.
While the alternative vision S proposes involves cultivating a range of organic staples—such as grains and legumes—alongside horticultural crops like fruits, herbs, and oils to feed their families and sell year-round, the farmers expressed that such a transition remains too risky. They have no guaranteed market outside of the government scheme, and if their crops fail—or if they are unable to store, transport, or sell their organic produce—their families could be left without sufficient income. Even converting just one acre from staple grains represents a significant financial risk, as these crops are their only reliable source of income aside from their work with S. Additionally, the farmers noted that, in their view, MSP rates have fallen below the true cost of production when factoring in input costs and transportation. Meanwhile, access to subsidies for energy pumps has made it easier to extract groundwater, reinforcing their reliance on conventional flooding practices, particularly for rice cultivation.
The farmers also acknowledged the health impacts of years of chemical exposure. In the formal meeting, nearly all reported experiencing respiratory and skin issues due to fertilizers and agrichemicals. Alarmingly, two of the eight farmers—both under the age of 40—revealed they have already undergone major surgeries for cancers linked to the insecticides they routinely use.
Even as S has started providing infrastructure to help them convert their produce into value-added goods—such as jams, flours, and oils—that could yield higher returns, the farmers maintained that making the initial leap into this model, without any economic safety net, feels improbable, if not impossible.
Alongside the financial uncertainties and policy incentives that keep farmers reliant on rice-wheat monocultures, they also face persistent challenges in accessing larger consumer markets for pulses, grains, and value-added products such as teas, herbs, flours, and oils. To that end, the farmers directly asked S how he manages the logistical difficulties of transportation and finding customers for these high-value organic goods.
One key example cited was the farm’s flour, which has a much shorter shelf life than conventional wheat flour due to its unique growing and processing methods. Ground using traditional stone-milling techniques that help preserve nutrients—and produced without pesticides or preservatives—the flour is what S describes as “living,” making packaging and storage a central concern. His refusal to use plastic, driven by both environmental and health considerations, has further complicated his search for an airtight, affordable packaging solution.
S explained that accessing a broader market has largely depended on an online sales platform, with many of his customers coming through farm visits or personal networks—those who can afford to pay premium prices for groceries. These avenues, however, are unavailable to the other eight farmers. Additional demand has come from upscale restaurants seeking high-quality, locally sourced ingredients.
urban demand for organic food products is growing, the logistics of reaching these markets often drive up prices—making their goods up to five times more expensive than conventional brands sold in superstores or street bazaars. This, in turn, exponentially reduces the accessibility of these goods. This, in turn, significantly reduces the accessibility of these products. Neither S nor I could identify an immediate solution to this challenge, though S highlighted the potential for farmers to aggregate their products and fulfill larger orders through cooperatives. Expanding their producer network beyond the small farm or even the immediate neighboring villages could provide a meaningful shift in market access.
At the conclusion of the meeting, S invited the farmers to consult with their families about dedicating one acre each to an organic pilot project—experimenting with legumes, oilseeds, millets, a shorter organic wheat variety, or select horticultural crops. To mitigate financial risk, he offered to cover all input costs and guarantee the same minimum price they typically receive for conventional crops. Any additional profits from the sale of organic produce would be retained entirely by the farmers.
The farmers were receptive, meeting his proposal met with cautious optimism. With S providing the financial backing and income security, they expressed openness to trying organic cultivation on one acre of their land. Given their existing experience at the farm, this measured step forward could offer a promising pathway toward deeper, more lasting change—grounded in mutual trust and lived experience, rather than external pressures or theoretical concepts.
S and I later debriefed the meeting, shifting our focus to the structural gaps that continue to limit the scalability of alternative farming models. S emphasized that the challenge isn’t just about changing the way crops are grown; it’s about rethinking the entire post-harvest system—how food is processed, stored, transported, and sold. We agreed that policy advocacy needs to prioritize tangible support for community-owned infrastructure, such as solar dryers to reduce perishability, decentralized cold storage to extend shelf life, and fermentation units that could add value locally. These are not abstract concepts—they already exist in fragmented and underfunded forms across India—but they require public investment and cooperative governance to function effectively at a larger scale.
We also reflected on the logistical challenges that continue to hinder rural farmers from accessing urban markets. Irregular transit routes connecting agrarian regions to urban hubs, along with the lack of public processing or grain aggregation centers, create significant obstacles for smallholders who are trying to move perishable goods in an efficient and cost-effective manner. These logistical bottlenecks exacerbate the difficulties faced by farmers and prevent them from tapping into broader markets that could potentially support their economic transition.
S concluded our discussion by reflecting on the skepticism and doubt he encountered when he first embarked on this path. Many neighboring farmers dismissed him outright, calling him irresponsible or labeling him a hobby farmer. Even those who were more sympathetic saw his efforts as something insular—a personal dream, perhaps worth observing, but not something they could truly invest in. For them, it was his experiment—they could be staff, but not co-dreamers.
He also acknowledged that his pursuit depended on a certain degree of financial freedom—having the capital or base income to sustain the farm during its transition, without being burdened by debts, daily survival pressures, or the relentless need to feed a family on an insecure income. His vision was only feasible outside the structural constraints of inequality and poverty. Thus, while the farm now serves as a demonstration of what is possible, it also reflects the privilege required to begin—ironically echoing the original “hobby farm” critique.
Conclusion
I was struck by S’s humble commitment to help his broader community gradually transition towards regenerative methods. His conscious reinvestment of his resources into his team of farmers and, by extension, the surrounding villages, offers a living example of what is possible with patient, place-based commitment, and relationships built on trust and direct support.
Yet, his own set of circumstances, and his new efforts to guarantee MSP-equivalent income for an organic pilot for his farmers, underscore the structural limitations that often prevent smallholders from shifting toward more biodiverse and ecologically sound practices. While S’s farm is able to provide his farmers critical assets—technical knowledge, physical infrastructure, and guaranteed income support—it is not readily replicable. For such transitions to become widespread, the burden of transformation must thus shift from the margins to the center.
Public institutions must tackle critical challenges, including inadequate infrastructure for processing, storage, and rural-urban connectivity while facilitating broader market access by expanding cooperative opportunities and addressing digital exclusion. (4) Additionally, extension systems must be reoriented to support agroecological transitions, while the mandi system needs to shift its focus from prioritizing wheat and rice to better supporting the cultivation of pulses, millets, oilseeds, and horticultural crops.
A central takeaway was that while comprehensive training in organic practices—such as intercropping, no-till methods, composting, livestock integration, and mulching—can encourage farmers to adopt new methods, it is risk assurance that most directly addresses the financial and policy barriers that constrain diversification.
While funding gaps were frequently highlighted as a core barrier, the consensus was not in favor of privatized solutions or corporate-sponsored philanthropic initiatives. Both S and the farmers shared a persistent skepticism toward strategies that rely on minimal market intervention and depend on private funding sources. They were united in the belief that meaningful progress hinges on stronger, more accountable public policies that transform the conditions under which smallholder farming operates.
This visit reinforced a crucial reality: the question of agricultural transformation is not whether farmers can or willing to farm differently—it’s whether the political and economic conditions make it safe for them to take such risks. Without some assurance of financial stability– through direct investment, loss assurances, and price guarantees— agro-biodiverse farming will remain a prohibitive risk for most smallholders.
Footnotes
- Permaculture generally refers to an integrated and holistic approach to land design and management that seeks to mimic the closed-loop nature of natural ecosystems. Permaculture farms typically rely on organic, minimal-input practices to manage pests, conserve water, restore soil health, and eliminate waste.
- The Green Revolution refers to a period of agricultural transformation that began in the 1960s in developing countries, particularly in India. The agricultural technologies introduced centered on high-yielding variety seeds, synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and intensive irrigation practices—marked a significant shift toward input-intensive agriculture. While these interventions succeeded in increasing grain output and helping achieve food self-sufficiency., particularly in wheat-producing regions like Punjab and Haryana, they are also associated with contributing to long-term ecological degradation, socio-economic inequalities, and the marginalization of rainfed regions and smallholder farmers. The mandi system in India refers to a network of state-regulated agricultural markets, formally governed by Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs), where farmers are required to sell their produce—typically through an auction mechanism—to licensed traders.
- To calculate the minimum, or base price, per crop, the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) uses three production cost estimates for farmers: A2, A2+FL, and C2.
- The A2 cost covers all paid-out expenses directly incurred by farmers in cash and kind, including seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, hired labor, fuel, irrigation, and leased-in land.
- The A2+FL estimate includes the imputed value of unpaid family labor in addition to A2 costs.
- The C2 cost, considered the most comprehensive, accounts for A2+FL costs along with the imputed rental value of owned land and interest on fixed capital.
- While the current government claims to set MSP at 1.5 times the all-India weighted average Cost of Production (CoP), it relies on the A2+FL calculation rather than the more exhaustive C2 cost. This practice enables the government to technically meet the 1.5x benchmark, but it while still often failing to reflect the true production costs– particularly for small and marginal farmers.
- Institutional support for cooperatives may include access to funding for start-up capital and to stabilize operations, including through government-backed low-interest loans and grants. Legal and regulatory frameworks that simplify cooperative registration, land acquisition, and market operations, as well as provide tax incentives for cooperative formation during the early phases can help ease financial pressure and support reinvestment. Expanding government-subsidized insurance programs to provide financial safety nets to protect cooperatives from market and environmental risks, may also facilitate the conditions for cooperative growth. Many rural farmers are also currently unable to benefit from online market platforms, digital agricultural advisory services, or e-commerce opportunities that could expand their reach to larger, more profitable markets. Addressing digital exclusion could involve improving internet access, digital literacy, and technology infrastructure in remote areas.
References
Graddy-Lovelace, G., et al. “Parity as Radical Pragmatism: Centering Farm Justice and Agrarian Expertise in Agricultural Policy.” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, vol. 7, 2023, doi:10.3389/fsufs.2023.1066465.
“MSP for Kharif Crops of 2014-15 Season.” Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture, 25 June 2014, https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=114860. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.
Patel, Aditya. Understanding the Minimum Support Price. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture & Technology, Aug. 2022.
Pendharkar, Vrushal. “A Shift to Less Water-Intensive Crops May Be the Key to Protecting Farmer Lives.” The Wire, 17 Jan. 2025, https://thewire.in/agriculture/a-shift-to-less-water-intensive-crops-may-be-the-key-to-protecting-farmer-lives.
Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution. Recommendations of High Level Committee on Restructuring of FCI. 22 Jan. 2015, https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=114860.
Singh, Indra Shekhar. “An Increase in MSP Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Fair Price for Farmers.” The Wire, 22 Oct. 2024, https://thewire.in/agriculture/an-increase-in-msp-doesnt-necessarily-mean-fair-price-for-farmers.
