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Agricultural economist Ashok Gulati has warned that India risks jeopardising $50 billion worth of exports if it refuses to engage in agriculture in the ongoing trade negotiations with the United States. In an exclusive interview with India Today, he said India should rationalise tariffs on farm goods and not fall for "ideological" fears.

"That agriculture is not insulated from the economy," Gulati said. "We are importing $37 billion worth of farm products, and from the U.S. alone we import just $2 billion. Against that, we export about $5.9 billion. If we remain rigid and refuse to open up any sector, we risk losing the big export of $50 billion."

He stressed that India already relies heavily on imports. "We are not living in autarky," he said. "Almost 55 to 60 percent of the edible oil that you consume is imported. To say we will not allow any imports is ridiculous."

Agriculture and dairy have emerged as the biggest sticking points in the proposed India-US trade deal, with Washington pressing New Delhi to lower tariffs on farm goods. India has so far held firm, citing the need to protect its farmers and rural economy.

India's tariffs, he argued, were overdue for reform. "If edible oil can come at 10 percent duty and cotton at zero, then why do we have 45 percent duty on corn, 50 to 60 percent on soybean, or skimmed milk powder?" he asked. "We have been unduly overprotective. My feeling is 80 percent of our agriculture is very competitive."

On the sensitive issue of genetically modified crops, Gulati called India's policy inconsistent. "Ninety-five percent of cotton in this country is GM, and its seed is fed to poultry and cattle," he said. "But we say corn, which is mostly feed, cannot be GM. That's not based on science. It's an ideology."

He suggested calibrated measures such as tariff-rate quotas. "Up to two million tons of corn could be allowed when production is around 42 million tons," he said. "Even if you open up, sometimes you will import, sometimes you will export. Prices are already close to international levels."

Gulati pointed to the risk of retaliation if India remained inflexible. "Our biggest agricultural export to the U.S. is shrimp, worth billions, and it goes at almost zero duty," he said. "If they put a 50 percent tariff on it, those exports will collapse overnight. Are we ready to bear that loss — and the political fallout in Andhra Pradesh?"

The economist urged negotiators to strike a balance. "Trade is always give and take," he said. "If they want self-sufficiency in agriculture, first thing they should do is stop all the imports of edible oils which are 17 billion dollars. 55 to 60% of your consumption of edible oil is being imported. Why are you importing that? Are the farmers of oil seeds not important? So this hypocrisy should not be a part of the negotiation. Trade negotiations are give and take." 

Today, on 19th September,2025, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Rural Development, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, chaired a pivotal meeting on GST reforms for the Agriculture Sector. 

The discussions were on the implementation of the GST rate cut on machinery and equipment in agriculture that was recently reduced by half to 5% instead of 12-18% effective on 22 September, 2025. This historic reform would make farm machinery much more affordable, lower production expenses, and increase the income of farmers.

Benefits for Farmers and Agriculture Economy 

In his response to the media following the meeting, Minister Chouhan said the GST reforms are “extremely helpful and beneficial” to farmers in India. He stressed that such reforms would give the agricultural sector a new impetus, allowing farmers to achieve higher prices, and agribusiness would become more open and easier.

Shivraj Singh Chouhand said, "GST on bio-pesticides and micronutrients has been reduced, which will benefit farmers. Also, the trend of farmers towards bio-fertilizers from chemical fertilizers will definitely increase. GST exemptions in the dairy sector, including on milk and cheese, will help the common man as well as cattle breeders and milk producers."

He also said that the government’s commitment is absolute; these reforms are sure to drop the input costs, increase production and profitability, and bring prosperity to farmers and rural India. 

Key Outcomes of the Meeting

• Discount of tractors and tools: Retail price reductions are forecasted to be 5% and will save between Rs 23,000 and Rs 63,000 based on horsepower and type of tractor. 
• Subsidy and Tax Benefits: Farmers will receive two benefits of government subsidies and reduced GST, which will decrease the total costs of cultivation. 
• Target Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs): The reduction of rental fees due to cheaper farm machinery purchase will provide access to mechanization within small and marginal farmers at CHCs.
• Industry Involvement: The industry representatives of major industry associations such as Tractor and Mechanisation Association (TMA), Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers Association (AMMA), All India Combine Harvester Manufacturers Association (AICMA), and Power Tiller Association of India (PTAI) attended and promised to spread these benefits.

The Vision of Agricultural Growth by Government

Under this reform, the government will enhance farm mechanization, efficiency, agricultural productivity, and localized manufacturing in the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. Closely collaborating with stakeholders is also the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to make the implementation as smooth and transparent as possible.

On September 4, the Ministry of Education published the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025 rankings, which show the best colleges and universities in 17 categories, including agriculture and allied sciences. Delhi Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) has topped the list 10th time consecutively in this critical category, closely trailed by the ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in Karnal, Haryana. Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) retained the third position and remained one of the major actors in agricultural learning. 

NIRF 2025 Agriculture and Allied Sectors top 10 institutes 

• Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi
• ICAR - National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, Haryana
• Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab
• Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
• Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Izatnagar, Uttar Pradesh
• Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
• Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Science and Technology, Kashmir
• Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Fisheries University, Mumbai
• G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand
• Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana

Agriculture Institutes NIRF Rankings 

Agriculture has stood as a pillar of the Indian economy, providing more than 15 per cent of the GDP and a large number of people with employment. The NIRF rankings measure teaching quality, research, practices, resources, and the excellence of the institutions, so they are credible resources when students are planning a career in the sphere of agriculture and other related fields.

IARI, New Delhi, enhanced its academic and research excellence image by securing the top spot again with a high rating, indicating strong faculty, advanced research initiatives and industry connectivity. The second one is the National Dairy Research Institute of Karnal, popularly referred to as ICAR, and it is ranked second due to its innovativeness in researching and extension services in dairy. With a slight increase in the ranking score, Punjab Agricultural University, which is in the top three due to its role in crop science and sustainable agricultural practices, is still in the top three.

Other Agriculture Institutions 

Other institutions that made it to the top ten list are Banaras Hindu University, the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) at Izatnagar, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) and Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Science and Technology of Kashmir. These institutions have a good reputation in their specialised courses in veterinary science, horticulture, fisheries and food technology. 

More importantly, the rankings also show increased influence of the private universities like Amity University and Lovely Professional University in the top 20, indicative of a broader increase in quality of agricultural education than the traditional universities. 

Why These Rankings Matter

These rankings offer crucial information to a student wanting to pursue quality education and research in agriculture and other related sectors, in ensuring India meets its food security, rural employment, and sustainable development objectives.

This list can serve as a reference point to students who intend to pursue a career in agriculture, searching primarily at the institutions that provide high-tech education, high-quality infrastructure, and industry links that will improve employability and growth opportunities.

A latest innovation from  the Silicon valley of India is gaining traction for its AI robot named Chewie that eats kitchen waste and turns it into nutrient-rich fertilizer. Chewie is an intelligent, AI-powered robot that is made to address the increasing problem of wet waste in urban homes.  

How Chewie works

This innovative AI wet waste robot allows fast, hygienic processing of vegetable peels, leftover food and kitchen scraps, and converts the resulting material into a high-quality soil that can be applied to a home garden or a small farm. With its small, convenient size and user-friendly design, this robot will provide a more eco-friendly and efficient solution to cleaning up the kitchen, as well as making home composting simpler and less unpleasant.

Chewie is unique as it integrates artificial intelligence and environmental science. It tracks temperature, humidity, and the de-composition process in real-time, and optimizes conditions to support fast composting with no smell. The process of composting that takes weeks, needs space, and effort is automated, compact, and fast, with Chewie producing organic fertilizer that enriches the soil and promotes healthy growth in plants. The technology is particularly significant in such cities as Bengaluru where landfill overflow is an acute issue and organic waste is a major contributor to pollution.

Benefits for students 

To students of agriculture and environmental science, Chewie sets a good example of the way technology can address the real-life problems of sustainable agriculture and urban waste treatment. It shows the application of robotics and AI outside factory floors and laboratories to such daily issues as household waste reduction and urban agriculture. 

Learning the science behind how Chewie works would provide students with a profound sense of the biology of decomposition, sensor technology, and machine learning algorithms. In the case of engineering students, it also allows discovering the possibilities of intelligent systems and automation that can optimize natural processes, such as composting, which will likely motivate them to develop similar solutions to challenges in agricultural technology.

Environmental Impact and Future 

This robot, Chewie, can also be viewed as an important lesson in circular economy principles using waste as a resource to produce food. This feature is crucial when India moves towards sustainable agriculture in order to nourish an ever-increasing population without harming the environment. In promoting production of rich fertilizer at the home level, Chewie will decrease the amount of chemical fertilizers required to enrich the soil, and will decrease carbon emissions related to the transportation of waste to landfills, making cities greener.

The Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said that the AI wet waste management robot has the potential to scale up and create wider environmental benefits. The success of Chewie may trigger the adoption of more technology-based eco-solutions in Indian cities, fostering a sustainable urban environment and driving young developers to consider a career in the intersection of agriculture, environment, and technology.

In conclusion, Chewie, the kitchen waste Robot produced in Bengaluru, is not an ordinary robot for the kitchen but a remarkable tool of AI and robotics that is changing waste management and farming in India. It not only gives people the ability to make green decisions without much effort, it also provides fertile land to practice urban agriculture, and is a good example to inspire students who might be interested in learning more about agriculture technology and sustainability. 

With innovative technology like Chewie being introduced in the current era, the future of agriculture is more intelligent, clean and more intertwined with technology giving the much-needed cue to enthusiasts who wish to pursue a lucrative career in tech, agriculture or bioengineering.

Think of the kind of love story that altered the future of farming and supplying the food to billions of people, though also not a human to human one. Rather, it was one between plants, very deep in prehistory, that left us with one of the most significant staple foods in the world: the potato.

An incredible and astonishing study published in Cell in 2025 shows that the potato is actually the off-spring of an ancient mating, a genetic marriage, between the tomato and a wild plant known as Etuberosum. This chance plant romance occurred some 9 million years back in South America and re-wrote the book of plant evolution by developing the tuber, the starchy and potent underground powerhouse of the potato.

The Tale of an Origins of a Tubular Tale

The study was conducted by Professor Sanwen Huang and a group at the Agricultural Genomics Institute in Shenzhen, China in partnership with a group of scientists in the UK and Canada. They carried out the largest ever genetic examination of cultivated and wild crop potatoes, with more than 450 cultivated and 56 wild potato genomes, a comparison with tomatoes and their cousins.

And what they discovered was shocking: 21st century potatoes possess a steady, harmonic blend of two DNA very different lineages. The tomato is the mother and the tomato is the father: the Etuberosum- a wild, potato-like plant native to Chile which is actually not a producer of tubers. The two species separated 14 million years ago, however, 9 million years later, they hybridized giving birth to something new and unique, a plant that had the capability to grow underground tubers.

The Major Genetic Gifts: The Blueprint of the Tuber

This ancient hybridization merged crucial genes from both parents, enabling the evolution of tubers, a plant organ that stores starch and water underground, offering survival advantages during tough environmental conditions.

• From the tomato came the gene SP6A, often called the "tuber switch," which signals when the plant should start forming tubers underground.
• From Etuberosum came the gene IT1, which controls the growth of underground stems that swell to become tubers.

Without this unique genetic combination, the potato could not have evolved its signature tuber.

What is So Important about This Genetic Marriage?

Development of the tubers provided the early potato with a massive evolutionary advantage. Tubers enable the plant to:

• Stock up nutrients and water in the ground, which makes it withstand droughts and cold climates.
• Grow asexually, by growing new plants by sprouting the buds on the tuber itself, without any necessities of having seeds or the power of pollination
• Be capable of living in many places, including mild lowlands and severe Andean alpine tundra.

This had come at the right time, when a fast uplift of Andes Mountains was in process; thus exposing plants to unfamiliar terrains and new environments challenging them. It was the ability of the potato to live and prosper where other plants failed to do so that led to its explosion of diversification to the more than 100 varieties of wild potato that exist and ultimately, domestication by humans.

Chemoparaboxide: More Than a Crop - a Scientific Milestone

The research resolves a decades-old puzzle emerging on why potatoes but not tomatoes with their relatives form tubers. Tomatoes do not possess underground tubers and, though Etuberosum possesses underground stems, it does not develop tubers. The scientists suggest that the tuber traces its origin to a genomic recombination event during hybridization, an evolutionary minor miracle in which nature elaborated through the sheer passage of time millions of years.

Non-participating scholars have commended it as a prototype in the study of any kind of similar evolution in the other species. The study offers new knowledge which may determine the formation of potato breeding programs in the future and make crops more adaptive to climate change and enhance food security to people all over the world.

Potato was really once a tomato 

The potato is not only a humble, everyday vegetable, but the child of an inconceivable 9-million-year-old mating between its tomato-like ancestor and a wild relative named Etuberosum. This primitive hybridization led to the invention of tuber and this invention made potato to be staple around the globe despite feeding billions of people with its nutritious and resilient underground tubers.

Tomato is the mother and Etuberosum is the father as Prof. Huang puts it. The tale of this botanical family can teach us that nature can take us by surprise and that even what we put on our plates has a very complicated genesis.

This find serves as a reminder that we should not only value potatoes as a loved vegetable and a desired fast food source but also because of its rich evolutionary history, which is a testament to genetic collaboration and its deep role in life on this planet.

The researchers of food crops are facilitating the future of food by ensuring food security and making food available to the global population that is increasing in numbers. A career in food crop research may be what you need to pursue in case you are interested in science, agriculture, and real-life solutions to food security related issues. This paper shall, therefore, describe who food crop researchers are, how to become one, and why a career in food crop research can deliver a futureproof as well as sustainable profession.

What Do Food Crop Scientists Do?

Food crop scientists aim to seek improved methods of growing food crops to ensure they produce more or better in terms of nutrients, and they are resistant to pests and diseases as well as changes in the climate conditions. They work:

1. Holding field experiments and laboratories analyzing growth of a crop, soil quality, water consumption, pests and diseases.
2. Breeding new high-yielding superior nutritional value, drought- and pest-resistant crop varieties.
3. The ability to maximize farming methodologies so as to make farming more sustainable and efficient in terms of costs by limiting the application of detrimental pesticides and fertilizers.
4. Interpreting data, writing research reports to communicate results to farmers, policymakers, and the scientific community.
5. Through working together with farmers, agronomists and industry professionals, sharing scientific findings with farmers in a practical way.

Depending on the area and foods required, they could be engaged in a variety of crops such as wheat, rice, maize, pulses, fruits, and vegetables.

Why are food researchers important? 

As the world population grows to more than 9 billion by 2050, food crop researchers will help to play a pivotal role in:

• Food security, particularly in such countries as India where crop-based agriculture is the predominant source of livelihood to the huge population.
• Seek a solution to the challenge of climate change through breeding crops that grow well under drought, flood, or altering temperatures.
• Caring about the environment by sustainable farming which involves moderate use of chemicals and conserves water and soil.
• Development of the following farmer incomes through raising crop productivity and cutting down on the cost of inputs and losses to the farmer caused by pests or diseases.

Their activities correspond to the national agricultural objectives and global agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations on its end of hunger and sustainable agriculture.

How to Become a Food Crop Researcher?

The following are the steps of education you should take in order to become an expert in food crop research:

1.Sciences Complete Higher Secondary Education (Class 12) with specialization in subjects such as Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics.
2.Obtain a Bachelor of Arts in pursuing disciplines like:

• Agricultural Science
• Agronomy
• Plant Science
• Crop Science
• Horticulture

3.Do postgraduate studies (Master and PHD) related to specialization in the field of plant breeding, plant pathology, crop genetics, or sustainable agriculture- in order to conduct research work at an advanced level.

4.Practical Experiences by working and internships with agricultural research institutions, universities or government agencies and field work.

5.Learn data analysis, research methods, scientific writing and laboratory/ field equipment.

Skills required by Food Crop Researchers

1. Scientific Curiosity and Analytical Thinking: Willingness to formulate experiments and be able to interpret experimental outcomes.
2. Plant Biology and Soil Science: Learn the growth of plants and the interaction with the environmental conditions.
3. Problem-Solving: Develop new ways of enhancing crop yield and sustainability.
4. Communication Skills: Write and present research results in understandable language with various audiences.
5. Partnership: Operate in partnership with farmers, researchers, and policy-makers.

Job Perspectives and Working Environments

Food crop researchers work at:

• Universities and government agricultural research institutions (e.g. Indian Council of Agricultural Research - ICAR)
• Seed industries and visits to private agricultural companies
• Global bodies dealing with food security and sustainability
• NGOs in the field of rural development and assistance to farmers

The occupation can be both a laboratory-based job and a significant amount of work in the fields working on farms.

Food Crop Researcher Career Path

Why Food Crop Research Is a Secure Career?

• Increasing Demand of Food Innovation: As climate changes, population expands, and resources become scarce, the need to innovate crops will continue to rise.
• Technology Integration: Food crop research involves using modern tech tools such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence powered data analysis, drone patrols and remote sensing thus modern food crop research is a trendsetting and technology-savvy field.
• International and Governmental Funding: International organizations and governments have kept 'flooding in' their investments into agricultural research and crop improvement programs.
• Social Impact: You have a chance to impact the lives of the farmers, small economies of the countryside, and national food policies. 

As a future-proof career, food crop research is interesting and fulfilling because it involves the combination of science and technology and practical field activities aimed at addressing authentic challenges of agriculture. It provides the students that are interested in agriculture and science, with a chance of impacting the world in a way that helps it to feed the world on a sustainable basis. As India continues its agricultural innovation and environmental protection, food crop researchers will continue to be major agents of change over the next few decades.

Food crop research could be the right career if you are ready to immerse yourself in the world of plants, become one with innovation, and work with food security on a global scale.