Global glut: Can India protect its farmers?

THIS GLOBAL EASING CREATES AN INDIAN PARADOX: WHAT COMFORTS CONSUMERS STRAINS FARMERS

- Shivaji Sarkar

india's food economy in 2026 looks comfortable.

Granaries I overflowing, vegetable prices slipping, sugar in surplus, and global food markets cooling even as wars rage in Ukraine and West Asia and climate shocks persist. The Food and Agricultural Organisation's (FAO) Food Price Index has retreated steadily from its pandemic and war-era highs, and the World Bank (WB) confirms easing pressure across cereals, sugar, dairy and vegetable oils.

This global easing creates an Indian paradox: what comforts consumers strains farmers. Prices are falling not because of rural prosperity, but because of surplus-global and domestic-long a mixed blessing in Indian agriculture. The reasons are structural. Bumper harvests of wheat, maize and rice in the US, Canada, Russia and Brazil, sustained Black Sea exports despite the war, lower en-

ergy and fertiliser costs, weakened demand for oils and dairy, falling freight rates, and gluts in sugar and dairy have together pushed global food prices down.