I spent the majority of my visit in Rajasthan, a state at the pointy end of the growing pains which will no doubt be involved as India’s agricultural revolution continues. The region – with its mix of modern and medieval farming operations – is being jolted into the 21st century, and with it, a people who stand equally to thrive, or to be left behind.

On a four day horse ride through the remote rural Aravalli Ranges, I saw a fascinating series of farm-scapes – tiny acre and half-acre plots of wheat, lentils, stands of sugar cane, and in poorer, thirstier parts, straggling crops of mustard. Rajasthan is peppered with millions of farmers, but many are too poor to create yields large enough to sell for much profit.

In support of these and larger farmers who do raise enough produce to sell, the government offers a generous subsidy to purchase wheat. What the whole sub-continent lacks, however, is adequate grain storage facilities, and consequently the landscape is dotted with mouldering piles of grain. The price the government pays keeps the farmer afloat, but an appalling infrastructural short-fall means thousands of tonnes of food lie rotting in a country where malnutrition is a widespread problem.

Misguided political benevolence is also behind large fertiliser subsidies which see farmers who have little else saturating their soil season after season, to squeeze a little more out of exhausted patches of dirt.

In Jodhpur, I met with farmer Ganpat Singh Jasol whose influential family has transitioned from overseeing 70 villages and their agricultural output in the 13th century to today supplementing day jobs with the output of their successful 90 hectare lentil, sorghum and guar cropping operation. Mr Jasol said that Rajasthani farmers are disadvantaged by minimal representation by strong lobby groups, and face a difficult job gaining the ear of politicians.

Last year, Rajasthan’s government signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with seven biotech seed companies. These have not been executed however, due to a surprisingly effective series of protests by farmers’ organisations. Pressure has continued to come from seed companies to formalise arrangements, but Rajasthan’s farmers have been vocal enough to prevent the government from putting together policy structure for the public-private partnerships it wishes to secure. Farmers, with the help of Mahasangh – a federation of farmers’ organisations long-opposed to GM crops – says they object to the haste and secrecy with which the state set about making the deals and suspect that Monsanto will charge for the seeds and technologies developed by using public infrastructure.

On the one hand, Rajasthani farmers are dealing with a life in which entire villages must often relocate if a well should dry up, and on the other, they are fighting the global farming battle of resisting pressure from multinationals.

When internationally owned supermarkets do hit India – and it’s a matter of when, not if – it will give farmers expanded options as more opportunities to sell produce at better prices emerge.

It can only be hoped however, that more prosperous farmers will mean more education about sustainable farming practices. And perhaps as the sector shapes up into one on a par with the standards Australia is so fortunate to enjoy, the government will cease funding illogical, paternalistic initiatives to prop up growers.

It’s a different world indeed to the flourishing farm sector of home, but if an Indian and an Aussie farmer were to sit down for a chat, they would no doubt agree on certain things: politicians are useless, the weather’s cruel and (give FDI a little time) the supermarkets are ruthless.