Overview
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the plenary at the India Today Group’s Kisan Tak Bharat Agriculture Conference and urged farmers to move toward natural farming, warning that current chemical use is “destroying Mother Earth.”
- He called for a technology-led transformation that includes drones, artificial intelligence, sensor-based soil testing and solar-powered farm machinery, and he asked manufacturers and startups to make equipment run on solar power.
- Modi noted programme achievements to date, saying PM‑KUSUM has delivered about 12 lakh solar pumps and claiming agricultural exports top Rs 4 lakh crore annually as evidence of rising farmer incomes.
- On diversification and value addition, he urged farmers to shift away from overreliance on wheat, rice and sugarcane and to use Farmer Producer Organisations, food processing and export links to raise incomes.
- The two-day conference at Bharat Mandapam functioned as a convening of farmers, policymakers and industry that also reinforced existing policy signals—including long-running fertiliser support and a July draft proposal on paraquat—while leaving formal regulatory steps to follow.