Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday, 29 May 2026, publicly praised Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat as a 'modern agricultural sage' (aadhunik krishi rishi) as the Governor attended the National Agriculture Conference — Kharif Campaign 2026 at Pusa, New Delhi.

Context

Posting on X, Chouhan described Acharya Devvrat as someone who has made Indian farming traditions and natural farming a lived practice — 'unhone Bharatiya krishi paddhati aur prakritik kheti ko apne jeevan ka aacharan banaya hai' ('he has made Indian agricultural methods and natural farming the conduct of his own life'). The minister noted that the Governor's experiences, reflections and experiments on soil fertility, nutritional quality of food, natural farming and farmers' prosperity are benefiting all stakeholders gathered at the conference.

The National Agriculture Conference — Kharif Campaign 2026 is the annual pre-season conclave convened by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to finalise crop strategies, input logistics and advisory frameworks for the upcoming kharif sowing season. It is held at the campus of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in Pusa, New Delhi, the country's premier agricultural research body.

Policy Backdrop

Natural farming has been a recurring priority in central agricultural policy. Since 2015, the government has operated the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), which supports organic and natural farming clusters across states. Gujarat launched a statewide natural farming initiative in 2020-21 under Acharya Devvrat's direct guidance, training farmers in chemical-free cultivation methods on a large scale.

Acharya Devvrat, appointed Governor of Gujarat in 2019 and a former Arya Samaj leader, has put natural farming at the centre of his gubernatorial identity — demonstrating the practice on the Raj Bhavan campus itself and championing it through state-level farmer training programmes. His presence at a national-level kharif conference underscores the convergence between the centre's agricultural outreach and state-level grassroots models.

Stakeholders and Impact

The kharif season is critical for India's food security, covering major crops such as paddy, pulses, oilseeds and cotton sown between June and September. Smallholder farmers — who make up the bulk of India's agricultural workforce — stand to gain most directly from natural farming guidance that reduces dependence on costly chemical inputs.

State agriculture departments, extension workers and input suppliers are the immediate institutional audience of the conference's outcome advisories. Chouhan's public acknowledgement of Acharya Devvrat's contribution signals the ministry's intent to integrate the Gujarat model's learnings into the broader national kharif planning framework.

What's Next

Observers will watch for the outcome documents and seasonal advisories that emerge from the 2026 Kharif Conference at Pusa, particularly any new guidelines on scaling natural farming clusters or revised targets under the PKVY. Any fresh centrally sponsored scheme component for chemical-free agriculture announced in the next budget cycle would signal whether the political momentum around natural farming translates into binding policy commitments.