Growth of India’s agricultural economy rests upon decades of robust and deliberate public policy framework. The vast network of agri extension centres and rural bank branches is a significant component of that architecture. Aided by this very architecture, agricultural credit has expanded rapidly over the past decade, growing at an average rate of around 13% annually and reaching 32.5 lakh cr in 2026.
But agriculture operates in a more complex and uncertain landscape today, and climate change is arguably the single biggest factor behind these complexities and uncertainties. This is not surprising considering the fact that more than half of India’s cultivated land is rain-fed and susceptible to erratic monsoons, heat stress, and extreme weather events. Over the years, soil degradation has affected nearly one third of India’s land, while water stress is intensifying across key agricultural regions. These are changes which will come with a cataclysmic cascading effect.
