Solar panels above, crops below — and 25 lakh farmers already reaping the rewards. Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi co-chaired the 7th AgriVoltaics World Conference 2026 in New Delhi on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, using the global platform to announce India's intention to launch one of the world's largest agrivoltaic programmes under the next phase of PM-KUSUM.

Joshi shared the stage with Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Dr. Jasper Wieck, Germany's Ambassador to India and Bhutan — a pairing that signalled both the domestic political weight and the international appetite behind agrivoltaics. The minister told the gathering that India's existing push under PM-KUSUM has already saved 800 million litres of diesel, translating directly into lower input costs for farmers who once ran diesel pumps across their fields.

What PM-KUSUM has built — and where it goes next

PM-KUSUM (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan) was launched in 2019 with a deceptively simple idea: let the same land that grows food also generate electricity. The scheme finances solar pumps and grid-connected renewable plants on farmland, giving farmers a dual income — from their crop and from selling surplus power to the grid. By October 2026, the government says the scheme has touched 25 lakh farmers nationwide.

The next phase, outlined by Joshi at the conference, would significantly scale the agrivoltaic component — solar structures elevated high enough to allow cultivation underneath. The minister pitched this not just as a domestic energy play but as a model the Global South could replicate: sun-rich, farm-heavy developing nations that face the same diesel-dependency trap India is steadily dismantling.

Germany's stake in India's solar-farm frontier

Ambassador Wieck's presence was more than diplomatic courtesy. German technical cooperation has underpinned several Indian renewable energy pilots and policy exchanges over the past decade, and agrivoltaics is a field in which Germany has invested serious research capital. The conference also saw the launch of key knowledge resources aimed at standardising agrivoltaic design, data-sharing, and deployment guidelines — groundwork that India will need before any large-scale tender can take off.

India committed to reaching 500 GW of non-fossil fuel electricity capacity by 2030 at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. Agrivoltaics, which unlocks solar deployment on agricultural land without sacrificing food production, sits at a critical intersection of that target and the government's parallel promise to double farmers' incomes.

A Global South blueprint in the making

The framing Joshi chose — addressing a 'global gathering' and explicitly invoking the Global South — was deliberate. India has increasingly positioned itself as a clean-energy model exporter through the International Solar Alliance and similar forums. Agrivoltaics, if the next PM-KUSUM phase delivers, gives New Delhi a concrete, field-tested programme it can hold up to peer nations grappling with the same food-versus-fuel land tension.

The immediate watchlist is straightforward: official guidelines and tender documents for the expanded PM-KUSUM agrivoltaic component, and whether the India-Germany dialogue at this conference crystallises into a formal pilot or bilateral agreement.

India is no longer just talking about agrivoltaics — it is drafting the scale-up. The world, it seems, is watching to see if the blueprint holds.