Articles by Laxmi Sharma
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Guest Articles
Monday
September 28
2026Can India Transition to Solar Without Leaving Farmers Behind? Lessons from Rajasthan’s First Farmer-Owned Agri-PV Pilot
Earlier this year, Rajasthan’s first farmer-owned Agri-PV plant was inaugurated under the Indian government’s PM-KUSUM program. As Laxmi Sharma and Subhodeep Basu at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) explain, Agri-PV involves installing elevated, ground-mounted PV panels so farmers can generate electricity and additional income while cultivating the land underneath. They share learnings from ICRIER's work supporting the early implementation of this model in India, where the key challenges have involved not technical design and engineering questions, but the difficulties of coordinating people, processes and institutions — and establishing and maintaining farmer trust.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment
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Guest Articles
Monday
April 13
2026Laxmi Sharma / Bidisha Banerjee / Subhodeep Basu / Ashok Gulati
Farming Under Solar: How Agriphotovoltaics Can Transform Rural Livelihoods in India
As India scales up solar energy, a critical question has emerged: Can this transition deliver clean power without displacing farmers from their land? According to Laxmi Sharma, Bidisha Banerjee, Subhodeep Basu and Ashok Gulati at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, the country's renewable energy expansion has been led by large, ground-mounted solar projects, often located on agricultural land. But while this model has been effective in scaling solar capacity, it has also created a disconnect between the energy and agriculture sectors, while limiting participation among farmers. They explore how agriphotovoltaics (Agri-PV) can address these issues by enabling the cultivation of crops beneath or between panel arrays, and discuss the pros and cons of different Agri-PV operating models.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy
