‘Uttam Kheti, Madhyam Vaan, Nirghin Seva, Bheekh Nidaan.’These words in Bhojpuri, from a folk song popular in the faraway fields and villages of Purvanchal distil a code of life in a few words. Sung in the purvanchal region spanning eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar, they roughly mean ‘agriculture is the worthiest pursuit, trade a middling profession and service is the worst – even begging is better than that’.This folk wisdom may sound harsh to urban ears, but it captures an agrarian worldview shaped by generations of lived experience. It also offers a telling lens from which to view the current talk about opening India’s agricultural market to the United States.Usually, this debate is framed in the language of global integration, trade efficiency, market access and consumer choice. Rarely is it viewed from the vantage point of Indian fields and farmers, for whom agriculture is not merely an occupation but a way of living, remembering, asserting dignity and freedom – and surviving against the odds.Also read: India to Eliminate Tariffs on Industrial and ‘Vast Array’ of Agricultural Goods: Jamieson GreerSo, let it be clear: your writer is no expert on international trade or business. He speaks, instead, as one who has spent a significant part of his life as an agriculturist, or listening closely to farming communities, and ultimately anchoring his stories in the folklore and lived realities of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.The contrastIn India, agriculture is not an “abstract” sector, waiting to be liberalised. It is an emotionally-connected and fragile ecosystem sustained by collective memory, social bonds and narrow margins of hope. For farmers, their fields are as precious as the birth of a son. Oxen, cows and buffaloes are not merely sources of sustenance; they are symbols of dignity, continuity and pride.This stands in sharp contrast to American agriculture, which is built on scale, heavy subsidies, advanced technology and corporate modes of organisation. Indian agriculture, in contrast, rests on small landholdings, unpaid family labour, seasonal uncertainty and cultural continuity.More than 85% of Indian farmers are small or marginal. Yet their homes, cattle wealth and farm fields remain the ultimate fallback for families – especially for children who lose jobs, fall ill or suffer business losses in the unfarily competitive urban ecosystem.Farmers sell fresh vegetables from boats in Srinagar, an instance of the tiny scale at which cultivation is done in India. January 12, 2026. Photo: PTI.Recall the lakhs of migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, who, during the COVID-19 catastrophe of 2020-22, had to walk hundreds if not thousands of kilometres from Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra and elsewhere to reach their homes. To them, memories of that long march to their villages are still fresh. They trudged home, carrying on their tired backs or in carts their babies and belongings. In those moments of profound distress, they instinctively chose their villages over cities, despite official claims that they would be provided food, medicine, oxygen and care.Also read: ‘Caution Not Celebration’: Trade Analysts React to US-India AgreementSo, the fact that both India and America have vast farmlands does not make them similar. No such long march occurred in the United States of America during the pandemic. Nor do Indian farmers compete with American farmers. They merely coexist with them – as they do with nature and as they must do with policy – often an uneasy coexistence.Opening India’s market to farm produce from the United States, without robust safeguards for domestic farmers, is not ‘competition’. It is an uneven contest between an industrial system and a survival economy. And it could well signal the beginning of the end of India’s cultural and civilisational threads, woven around agriculture.In the United States, agriculture is primarily a source of income and profit for large corporations and business houses that enjoy heavy clout within the governance system. In India, agriculture denotes identity, culture and social continuity. In the United States, it is largely another means to generate income and maximise profit.Unlike Indian farmers, American farmers do not worship their oxen and cows, nor do they celebrate harvest as a civilisational ritual. Their cattle wealth is destined to become steak, meatball and bacon – commodities that join the global supply chains, but little else.Seen purely through an Indian agriculturist’s lens, powerful corporations and business houses appear to have inspired US President Donald Trump’s decision to push for an agricultural trade deal with an India still mired in rural poverty, inequality and stark disparities.When subsidised American produce enters Indian markets, price signals are bound to collapse. For a small farmer, even a modest price dip can determine whether a daughter or son goes to school, or whether a loan is rolled over once again. Such realities rarely find space in trade negotiations.Dairying will hurt tooThe US-India trade deal could wreak havoc on the country’s dairy sector too. India’s dairy economy is decentralised, household-based and a part of everyday rural life. One or two heads of cattle often provide a steady income and source of milk protein, especially when rainfall fails. In village homes, money earned from milk and curd pays for medicines, school fees and groceries.American dairy, by contrast, is industrial, export-oriented and heavily subsidised. Opening India’s dairy sector to such imports would not merely disrupt a market; it would unsettle millions of rural households. It would collide head-on with cultural practices and ethical norms that Indian farmers and consumers still hold dear.Also read: The Road Ahead: Implementation Checkpoints of India-US Trade Deal to Watch Out ForThis is precisely why dairy has historically remained a political and social red line in India. Diluting it in the name of trade would be reckless.As a folktale teller, this writer worries not only about income loss, but about narrative loss; about villages that stop telling stories because the land no longer listens. But even beyond this loss, what India risks in substantive terms is also the loss of its moral and strategic standing, domestically as well as at global forums such as the World Trade Organisation.A farmer in West Bengal prepares a paddy field for cultivation, one of millions reliant on manual labour on small holdings to make a living. January 10, 2026. Representational photo. Credit: PTIIndia has consistently argued on international platforms that agriculture in developing countries cannot be treated like any other tradable commodity. Opening its own market under pressure from the United States would weaken that long-held position, diminishing India’s credibility and authority, particularly in the eyes of its South Asian neighbours.Domestically, such a move could provoke strong political backlash. Agriculture is not peripheral to Indian democracy; it lies at the very heart of its anxieties, mobilisations and aspirations.Death of folkloreMaster storyteller Munshi Premchand’s “Do Bailon ki Katha” (A Tale of Two Oxen) centres on Heera and Moti, oxen who forged a deep friendship, rebelled against their new owner after their old master sold them, escaped the cruelty of a cattle shelter, and eventually returned to the man who once loved and cared for them.Such as the stories of resilience, endurance and survival in the face of bondage and exploitation that stem from Indian farms. Such tories risk being stripped of all meaning if a new trade regime renders cattle into merely economic units, stripped of their cultural and emotional significance.Also read: Cash Crops, Highways and the Ranglongs’ Struggle for IdentityOr recall Mahendra Kapoor’s soulful rendition in the 1967 blockbuster Upkar: “Meray desh ki dharti sona ugley, ugley heera moti… bailon kay galon mein jab ghungroo, jeevan ka raag sunaatey hain. (The earth of my country yields gold and diamonds; when bells around the oxen’s neck sing the rhythm of life.)” To generations raised after a US-India trade deal reshapes rural India, such a song may sound like it was from another planet.A way outThis writer readily admits his lack of expertise in international trade relations or geopolitical strategy. Yet, from the lens of an agriculturist and folklorist, he offers a humble suggestion to India’s policy dispensation. This is not an argument against trade, per se. But if India chooses to engage the United States on agriculture, it must protect dairy unequivocally, retain tariff safeguards for vulnerable crops and invest substantially in farmer resilience before opening markets.Most importantly, policymakers must recognise that small farmers are citizens first, and entitled to protection from the governments they elect, and producers second.Nalin Verma is a New Delhi based journalist, author and folklorist.