After decades on the sidelines of international agricultural trade, India was poised last year to become a major food supplier, overtaking traditional exporters of food grain and meat. This could prove to be flash in the pan. The sudden rise and fall of India as food exporter is of its own making: populist calculation by the ruling coalition, sacrificing sustainable policy. India's shining as a grain exporter could also signal general decline of the country's agriculture industry, with falling aquifer levels and degradation of soil.