The Quiet Exit of Rain-fed Farming

Rain-fed farming has traditionally escaped policy and funding attention, though it engages more than 60% of India’s farmers. In Karnataka’s Koppal, it now finds itself competing with state-backed solar farms for real estate, at a considerable social cost

Bhargavi S Rao

Work-in-progress on the solar park installation in Talakkal in Koppal, Karnataka. Bhargavi S Rao/The Migration Story

KOPPAL, Karnataka: A sea of solar panels has replaced the millets, pulses, and vegetables that once grew in the fields flanking the road to Talakkal, a small village in Koppal district of Karnataka. Just a few years ago, locals say, this land grew food, fed cattle, and supported seasonal employment for landless workers. Today, in a stark contrast, gleaming photovoltaic panels are beginning to stretch across acres, sheltering the rich black soil from the sun. 

"The land wasn't barren," said a local shepherd, guiding his small flock of sheep past the edge of a new solar park, gesturing at the panels. "The monsoon abandoned it, and more importantly, so did the state."

Over 60-70 % of Karnataka’s cultivated land is rain-fed. In a good year, these regions produce plenty of paddy, millet, pulses, oilseeds, and cotton with little to no irrigation support.  Koppal district alone contributes 10.30% to state paddy production and is considered the rice bowl of Karnataka, although 76% of the cultivated land is dependent on rain and is drought prone. 

Rain-fed agriculture remains politically invisible and economically unsupported. Farmers in these areas face immense uncertainty every year without assured irrigation, meaningful crop insurance, or timely state support services, including farming inputs, according to Somi Reddy, retired professor of Statistics, SVM College, Ilakal, who champions local farmer causes. 

The monsoon determines the farmers' fate, he said, adding that increasingly, that fate was cruel. 

The story of local farmer, Iranna, illustrates the point Reddy is making. Iranna sowed pigeon pea in one acre of his land. The monsoon arrived on time and the harvest was bountiful. He tripled down and covered all three acres with pigeon pea the following year, and the monsoon never arrived. Buried in debt and left with no money to sow this year, he took up construction labour to make ends meet.

Reddy observed that the rapidly expanding solar energy industry is now leveraging the uncertainty of the monsoon. In the race to develop renewable energy (RE) and meet the state’s RE targets, vast tracts of rain-fed agricultural lands are being leased or acquired by solar park developers. 

While the climate crisis demands urgent transitions away from fossil fuels, the way we transition matters. More importantly, it matters who benefits and who loses. The burden of this transition, however, is being shifted onto the backs of rain-fed farmers, who have already borne the brunt of climate impacts and policy neglect, and for whom the state's role must go beyond simply enabling solar leases.

Farm labourers working on a sugarcane plantation in the irrigated part of Koppal in Karnataka.

Bhargavi S Rao/The Migration Story

Rain-fed farming losing its place in the sun?

In Karnataka, Pavagada sets the example as the world's fourth-largest solar park with 2000 MW (megawatts) of energy. Bellary, Gadag, and Koppal are fast becoming the new frontiers of green energy expansion. India's push for renewable energy is critical, but while governments celebrate these as symbols of progress, a deeper look reveals a troubling pattern: farmers are pushed out of agriculture not by choice but due to neglect.

According to Reddy, the large landholders of the villages, mainly upper class, are proud of the fact that their children have made it to a life beyond the district, state, and country borders. The village is left with a predominantly ageing population who find it difficult to look after the land, manage agricultural labour, and bear the financial risk of uncertain rains. 

For them, the steady lease income from solar companies is more attractive and an offer too good to refuse. The bigger landholders set an example and often persuade small and marginal farmers to also lease their land to solar farms. Many in the region, unemployed, have become local real estate agents, eventually pushing everyone in the village to part with their land.

Despite their scale and importance, rain-fed regions receive a fraction of the state's agricultural investment. Although Rain-fed Area Development (RAD), Krishi Bhagya, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), Surya Raitha Scheme, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY), Soil Health Mission Program, and other support schemes have been introduced, the local farmers say accessing them is a considerable challenge. According to them, the lion's share of subsidies, research, and infrastructure continues to flow to irrigated zones and high-input cash crops like sugarcane and paddy.      

In this vacuum of state support, private solar developers find easy entry. Their promises are seductive and very persuasive. They promise steady lease payments (of 30,000 Indian rupees per acre per year), no market risks, no input costs, and an opportunity to "retire" from farming. It sounds like a significant relief for families already weary of unpredictable yields and mounting costs. But Reddy fears that such money will not be enough for a dignified life in the coming years. 

Social and environmental costs of new land-use 

Kallesh, a waiter at a local hotel in Koppal, explained that the land transaction is rarely as clean or informed as it seems. Intermediaries often do the groundwork of collecting land documents, promising exaggerated returns, or misrepresenting terms. Most farmers lack the legal literacy to understand the fine print of lease agreements that stretch 25 years or more. 

Women, tenant farmers, and landless workers are excluded from negotiations, he added. He confided that he learnt about the trade-offs surrounding solar parks through all the conversations people have at the hotel where he serves food. 

Contrary to official claims, solar parks are not being built on ‘wastelands’, Kallesh said. His parents parted with their two acres of land that was being cultivated. "The land here is cultivable, very fertile, and there are no wastelands," he said.

According to him, in Koppal, where millet and cotton have long histories, solar projects are coming up on patta lands that have access to tanks and groundwater. What was once multi-cropped and food-producing is now beginning to lie under metal and concrete. Imagine 15,000 acres of solar parks, that’s the size of the land being transformed, he added.

This transition comes with costs that are both ecological and social. Grazing commons are fenced off, displacing pastoralists. According to him, ground temperatures rise under panels, affecting soil organisms and the region's soil quality. He fears the land will be lost to private corporate control, and local water regimes will change. 

Fertile black soil fields being prepared to receive solar panels, Talakkal in Koppal district of Karnataka.

Bhargavi S Rao/The Migration Story

Sunny future for solar, but not for small farmers

Koppal's overall literacy rate was approximately 68.09% according to 2011 census data, with male literacy at 78.54% and female literacy at 57.55%. This indicates a significant gender gap, the pattern of lower literacy in rural areas (66.05%) and a general ranking near the bottom for the state. 

 It has a historical legacy of being part of the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, which has experienced significant regional imbalance and underdevelopment. 

A district such as this requires continued support from both state and central governments for better education, healthcare and more but instead has been left to the evolving solutions of the climate crisis. Year after year, farmers are left to gamble with the rain, knowing that they are one failed monsoon away from debt, distress, or exiting the profession. 

Women's livelihoods, particularly from agriculture-linked labour and fodder collection, are getting erased, with no replacement.

Sumitra, waiting at a bus station, said that she worked as a housekeeping staff member at a resort in Hampi. She said that finding work has become extremely difficult for women, as farm-based work is disappearing, and solar parks have no jobs for women. 

The landless often leave for good, she said, as they have nothing to return to except perhaps a few relatives scattered in the region. “Life is very hard; no relative can support other relatives like in the past,” she said, explaining that the social fabric of those who leave remains very torn and they are left to face hardships alone. 

Sumitra also drew attention to the increasing number of child marriages in the region, stating that when small landholders and landless people are in debt, the girl child is culturally considered a responsibility and soon given away in marriage, often to a much older man. Such young girls’ bodies are not ready for a reproductive cycle, and there have been many deaths during childbirth, she said. 

Boys too fall into the trap, but many leave with the menfolk and find odd jobs in highway dhabas as cleaners, or some even get into wrong ways of earning a meal. 

Mounesh, a local contractor for solar parks, shared that four technicians and 10 labourers are required for every 1 MW of installation work. He claimed that four of the labourers are often women. According to him, the wages for technicians remain at 1,500 Indian rupees per day, while for the labourers, they are 500 rupees for women and 600 rupees for men. He agreed that once the installation work is complete, the plant would not require much labour and would support very few jobs.

"What happens to these labourers then? Is this fair? Is it right to encourage such land-use change? Can you believe our government even facilitates this?" Kallesh questioned. He alleged that revenue records are altered to reclassify agricultural land, and solar parks have been removed from the purview of environmental clearances. 

"All this has been done only to secure all the NOCs from concerned agencies," he said. The outcome is slowly becoming clear: State agencies build roads and substations for solar infrastructure, and the red carpet is laid for solar power generation.

Investment and economic model

In Koppal, a 1 MW solar power plant can generate roughly 4,000 to 4,500 units (kWh) of electricity daily. The region is a significant hub for solar energy, featuring an Ultra Mega Renewable Energy Power Park (UMREPP) that attracts major developers. To set up a 1 MW solar park, the required initial investment is approximately three crore Indian rupees, in addition to acquiring about five acres of land. The electricity generated is then sold for roughly 4.80 rupees per unit. 

The solar sector in Koppal involves not only major national renewable energy companies but also wealthy residents. These individuals play a key role by acquiring small land parcels, either by lease or direct purchase, from small landholders to build their own 1 MW solar parks. The increasing demand for land for solar parks means that small farmers are gradually selling their land, paving the way for solar energy development to become the new standard among the region's larger landowners.

Almost a decade ago, the Government of Karnataka initiated major irrigation projects to increase the irrigated area in Koppal, Yelburga and Kushtagi taluks. The individual project costs varied, with the Upper Krishna Project (UKP) having a final cost of 10,371.67 crore Indian rupees according to newspaper reports, and the Koppal Lift Irrigation project phase II cost at 1967.38 crores Indian rupees, according to the Government of India, Ministry of Commerce and Industry. News reports claimed that Karnataka had also appealed for funds from the Centre for six more irrigation projects in the state.

A number of irrigation projects have resulted in canals bringing water to some parts of the region near Anegundi in  Koppal district of Karnataka. Bhargavi S Rao/The Migration Story

In addition, under the Convergence with MGNREGA scheme, 121 renovation/ rejuvenation programmes for 121 tanks and 14,000 borewell recharging structures had been suggested to bring back 15,685 ha of irrigated area by harvesting surface water more effectively. 

These lift irrigation and water security projects, that have been years in the making and are now close to completion, were meant to transform the region’s agriculture. But if fertile land is handed over for solar parks, and local people have migrated, these massive public investments in channelling water to non-irrigated lands will go to waste.

The Singatalur Lift Irrigation Project includes the irrigation of Koppal Taluk, along with other taluks in Gadag and Bellary districts, through a network of canals and pressurised pipelines. The project consists of water being lifted from the Tungabhadra River and supplied using drip irrigation systems, with the aim to improve agricultural stability and people's living standard in the command area. 

Professor Reddy shared how Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Limited (KNNL) wrote to the District Collector of Koppal a few years ago, requesting that villages with planned lift-irrigation be left out of the solar park projects. KNNL also requested revoking approvals of solar projects in such villages that would benefit from the irrigation project for their farms, since much money had already been spent for this purpose. 

This was a successful appeal, he told The Migration Story, and approximately 10,000 acres of prime agricultural land were saved from the solar parks’ takeover, but he wondered for how long; farmers lack awareness and agency to negotiate, and he feared they may succumb to the pressure and persuasion of the solar projects, eventually. 

Moving forward, the shift to renewables, from a climate justice approach, needs a reimagination: building local water resilience, supporting agroecological practices, ensuring fair markets, and valuing dryland crops as part of nutritional and climate resilience strategies. And the next step would be to explore options for decentralised solar and other renewable energy possibilities with local farmers' consent and genuine participation, including the involvement of panchayats and farmers. 

The 11th Schedule of the Constitution lists non-conventional energy as a function of the panchayat, and it, therefore, must not be bypassed. Renewable energy must coexist with food, water, and livelihood security. It must protect food systems, local economies, and ecological knowledge. It must offer real choices and explore decentralised cooperative-owned possibilities, not force farmers to choose between hunger, migration and a solar lease. As the panels rise, so do our questions. Whose land is this? Whose future is being powered? And what are we willing to sacrifice in the name of climate change?

Edited by Meetu Grover

Bhargavi S Rao is an independent researcher, working at the intersection of community action with policy, law, planning and governance. Her work looks at bridging grassroots realities with decision-making spaces