The world of “development” often seems short of convincing answers. Conflict, climate stress, food insecurity, entrenched poverty, and fiscal pressure are exposing the limits of old models.

There is wisdom in starting with things as they are, which is where serious development must begin — with honest evidence, practical experience, and results that hold up. By that test, some of the most useful lessons for rural development may be coming, not from donor strategies, but from India’s smallholder farmers.

Across rural India, farmers, women’s groups, producer organisations, and rural enterprises are showing that smallholder agriculture can move beyond poverty and subsistence towards prosperity through organisation, commercial opportunity, and resilience at scale. While the story is not finished, it is one of the most important development stories of our time because India is showing, in ways few countries have matched at scale, that even in resource-constrained contexts, rural transformation can be practical, inclusive and commercially serious. India’s approaches are not perfect, but they are among the most impressive — combining infrastructure, enterprise development, skills, finance, and market access in increasingly commercial ways that can deliver results at scale.

However, challenges remain. Smallholder farmers — at the first mile of our food systems — continue to face unequal access to finance, technology, markets, land, water and relevant infrastructure. Climate change is adding pressure through less predictable rainfall, rising temperatures, and weakening soils. But these realities make India’s experience all the more valuable, because they show why rural transformation cannot depend on isolated projects alone.

The lesson is simple but important: no single intervention is enough. Roads, irrigation, power and digital connectivity matter, but they only change lives when farmers can organise into collectives that give them real bargaining power, access to finance and technology, and the ability to reach markets and build viable food enterprises.

Redefining development

This is visible in programmes financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialised UN agency and long-standing partner of India. Examples from nearly five decades of the IFAD-India partnership include self-help groups accessing commercial credit in Maharashtra, which support thousands of enterprising rural women; a hub-and-spoke economic development model in Meghalaya; youth- and women-led farmer producer organisation enterprises in Uttarakhand; climate-resilient Zau farming in Mizoram which protects the environment as well as traditional communities; and engaging with the young people in Jammu and Kashmir, harnessing their entrepreneurial spirit, in order to unlock the region’s vast agricultural potential.

India’s experience is compelling because it has built much of the ecosystem needed to make those connections work through government bodies, NGOs, private enterprises, the Agri Stack digital public infrastructure, institutions such as NABARD, self-help groups, farmer producer organisations, cooperatives and micro, small and medium enterprises. Together, they help smallholders access services, finance and markets, while digital tools improve efficiency and accountability. The new IFAD-India eight-year strategy, launched in May this year, is aligned with India’s Viksit Bharat@2047 vision and built around strengthening that architecture.

India is an important voice in the Global South’s rural development conversation, and that voice is increasingly taking on a broader leadership role. In the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, India’s rural experience becomes a shared resource for the wider family of nations. As the only international financial institution devoted to rural transformation, with a presence in 92 countries, and many more as part of the wider UN system, the IFAD is how India’s lessons travel beyond its borders. This does not mean India’s models can be copied exactly. What can travel are the principles — build strong local institutions, connect them to markets and finance, invest in rural enterprises, use digital systems intelligently, and treat smallholders, including women and youth, as economic actors rather than passive beneficiaries.

Marc de Sousa-Shields is IFAD Country Director, India