Modi urges farmers to cut chemicals and turn to natural farming: 'We are destroying Mother Earth'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked farmers to loosen their grip on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, saying that the way chemicals are used today is “destroying Mother Earth”. He was speaking at the Bharat Agriculture Conference 2026 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, a two-day gathering of more than 2,000 farmers, scientists, policymakers and industry representatives under the theme “Smart Kisan, Viksit Bharat”.

The appeal for natural farming ran alongside a longer defence of the Centre’s farm record, and a warning that agriculture has to change with the market. “Merely filling the granaries of food grains is not enough,” the Prime Minister said, arguing that markets, weather patterns and technology have all shifted and that farmers must be helped to shift with them.

What he said about chemicals

Mr Modi drew a line between natural farming and organic farming and aimed his appeal at the first. Overuse of chemical inputs, he said, is wearing down the soil and harming the environment. “The way we are using chemicals, we are destroying Mother Earth,” he said, and asked the audience whether they were protecting her. He warned that if nothing changes, a situation may come when the soil “abandons us before our very eyes”.

He pointed farmers to technology that tells them what their soil needs and how much fertiliser to apply, so that use is measured and not habitual. He also mentioned the Union Cabinet’s decision a day earlier to approve ₹62,370 crore in subsidy for phosphatic and potassic fertilisers for the October 2026 to March 2027 rabi season, a step covered in our report on the Cabinet’s fertiliser subsidy decision.

The subsidy bill and the diesel arithmetic

Much of the speech was about what the Centre pays to keep farm inputs cheap. Mr Modi said about ₹16 lakh crore has gone into fertiliser support over 12 years, and that a bag of urea that would cost about ₹3,000 on the international market reaches Indian farmers for less than ₹300.

He also described how the government handled the West Asia oil shock. When crude touched $120 a barrel, he said, the pressure was for a ₹50 a litre rise in diesel. The Centre raised the price by ₹7 and absorbed the remaining ₹43 so that farmers did not carry the cost, at a monthly burden the PMO release puts at about ₹14,000 crore.

The record he cited

The Prime Minister said agricultural growth has stayed above 4% over the past decade and tied farm growth to a fall in rural poverty, citing a World Bank study. He said India ranks first in the world in milk, pulses, jute, rice and millets, and second in wheat, cotton, fruits, vegetables and fish, and that agricultural exports now exceed ₹4 lakh crore a year.

On production, he said milk output has risen by nearly 70%, egg production by nearly 90%, and fish production has more than doubled. Honey output has gone from about 80,000 tonnes to 1.5 lakh tonnes, and horticulture from 280 million tonnes to more than 350 million tonnes.

On the infrastructure behind those numbers, he said soil testing labs have grown from a few hundred in 2014 to more than 8,400, and that India has more than 725 Krishi Vigyan Kendras. Livestock belonging to more than 8 crore farmers has been vaccinated free against foot and mouth disease, about 12 lakh solar pumps have been installed under PM-KUSUM, and a network of about 10,000 farmer producer organisations is in place.

Drone Didis, startups and “krishi udyamis”

Mr Modi praised the women who fly agricultural drones under the Namo Drone Didi scheme for showing that advanced technology can work in villages, and described how one of them is now called “pilot” in her village. He asked startups to build solar-powered farm equipment and AI-integrated tools that cut costs and make sowing and harvesting simpler.

He also urged that “annadatas”, the food providers, be turned quickly into “krishi udyamis”, or agricultural entrepreneurs, so that farmers can use modern technology and reach markets directly. He recalled the “Lab to Land” approach he followed as Gujarat Chief Minister, and urged farmers to diversify beyond wheat, rice and sugarcane. He linked farming to the festivals that follow the harvest, from Onam and Pongal to Baisakhi, and said a developed India cannot be built without developing agriculture.

Where natural farming stands

The Centre’s main programme for the shift he described is the National Mission on Natural Farming, approved in November 2024 with an outlay of ₹2,481 crore. It sits alongside the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana, launched in 2015 to support organic farming, and the Mission Organic Value Chain Development for the North Eastern Region.

A parliamentary reply from the Agriculture Ministry this year put the mission’s reach at 18,786 clusters, 8.80 lakh hectares and 18.19 lakh enrolled farmers as of March 5.

Natural farming in numbers

• ₹2,481 croreoutlay of the National Mission on Natural Farming, approved November 2024
• 18,786natural farming clusters as of March 5
• 8.80 lakhhectares covered
• 18.19 lakhfarmers enrolled

What happens next

The conference continues on Friday. The Prime Minister’s next engagement is a two-day tour that starts in Bengaluru and Mysuru on November 13, where he is due to launch projects worth over ₹15,600 crore, and ends at Ambaji in Gujarat on November 14, as set out in our preview of the visit. No new scheme or funding was announced at the conference; the speech set out the direction the Centre wants farmers to take, and it left the pace of that shift to the farmers, the states and the mission.