India and Japan Join Hands to Build 1,000 Biogas and Organic Fertiliser Plants via Dairy Cooperatives

India and Japan have formalised one of their most agriculturally significant bilateral agreements in recent years — a Memorandum of Cooperation for the India-Japan Cooperative Biogas for Growth (CBG) Initiative. The deal was among 16 key outcomes announced during the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to India and was unveiled through a joint press statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The centrepiece of the agreement is the establishment of 1,000 compressed biogas and organic fertiliser plants across the country. Rather than building standalone industrial facilities, the programme is designed around India's already-extensive network of dairy cooperatives — institutions with deep rural reach, established supply chains and existing livestock infrastructure — making them natural hubs for feedstock aggregation and biogas production.

The new initiative dovetails directly with the government's GOBARdhan (Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan) programme, which seeks to convert agricultural and livestock waste into energy and compost. According to Prime Minister Modi, the India-Japan collaboration will significantly strengthen GOBARdhan's reach and execution capacity.

The proposed plants will process cattle dung, agricultural residues and other biodegradable waste into two outputs: clean compressed biogas as a fuel substitute, and organic manure as a replacement for chemical fertilisers. This dual-output model is central to the initiative's appeal — it addresses energy security and soil health simultaneously, while also providing a scientifically managed solution to waste disposal challenges that many rural districts currently face.

Beyond energy and environment, the initiative is explicitly framed as a rural livelihood programme. By creating commercial value from waste that dairy farmers and agricultural households currently discard, the CBG plants are expected to generate supplementary income for participating cooperatives and their members.

Prime Minister Modi noted that the collaboration would give fresh momentum to sustainability, prosperity and livelihood generation in India's villages. The integration of renewable energy infrastructure with cooperative dairy networks is intended to produce a decentralised, community-participatory model of clean energy — one that keeps economic benefits within rural areas rather than concentrating them in large centralised facilities.

Additionally, wider availability of organic manure from these plants is expected to reduce farmers' dependence on chemical fertilisers, lower input costs over time and contribute to improved soil health across agricultural belts.

The CBG initiative sits within a considerably larger strategic framework. India and Japan simultaneously announced an Energy Resilience Initiative aimed at insulating both economies from global energy market disruptions, including oil price volatility. Both governments also reaffirmed commitments to expand cooperation across batteries, green hydrogen and nuclear energy.

On economic security, the two countries adopted a Joint Roadmap on Economic Security covering supply chain resilience in critical sectors — semiconductors, quantum technologies and advanced materials. Prime Minister Modi characterised economic and energy security as shared strategic priorities in an era of global uncertainty.

For India's agricultural and rural sectors, the biogas programme is arguably the most immediately tangible outcome from this summit, given its direct links to farming communities, cooperative institutions and the country's renewable energy transition goals.