Financial Times published an article on how India is struggling to wean itself off subsidies that encourage overuse. India’s “green revolution” was hailed globally for combining policy and scientific advances in agriculture — bringing food security to the newly independent country. A surge in yields and production of staple crops, such as rice and wheat, helped prevent the famines that had blighted the country under British colonial rule. However, the intensification of Indian farming in the decades since has spawned a series of challenges of its own, from chemical pollution to price distortion. One of the greatest of all is unsustainable water use. The government, NGOs, and the private sector are seeking solutions. These various approaches have all had some success. Senior research fellow Avinash Kishore argues that the vast differences in potential yield mean it is often more lucrative to grow rice than alternatives — even with the extra money. Kishore says that the government “seems to have given up” on trying to reorganize the system of subsidies that ultimately push farmers to grow water-intensive crops. But he believes that at least one project has had some success in achieving the scale that could break the deadlock.