Ishwak Singh starrer Mitti: Ek Nayi Pehchaan pays homage to India’s agri-tech ventures

Ishwak Singh; and directors Gaganjeet Singh and Alok Kumar Dwivedi on the sets of ‘Mitti: Ek Nayi Pehchaan’. (Images via Instagram)

Roughly halfway through ‘Mitti: Ek Nayi Pehchaan’, a village elder and naysayer tells Raghav (Ishwak Singh) that there’s a difference between being in a village and belonging in that village. It’s a difference that Raghav struggles to make up, but one which is also at the heart of this back-to-roots series that dropped on Amazon MX Player earlier today (July 10, 2025).

Directed by Alok Kumar Dwivedi and Gaganjeet Singh, ‘Mitti: Ek Nayi Pehchaan’ follows Raghav, a village-born but city-bred ad executive who gladly draws on his rural roots for advertising campaigns. He wears – and shares with others – gamchas, as he sells commercials for products and services geared towards ‘Bharat’. Things change, slowly, after Raghav’s grandfather, Sudarshanji (played by Yogendra Tiku). Raghav takes on his grandfather’s mantle, and his farm debt, first out of a sense of duty, then for the family honour and finally conviction.

The series traces the kind of return to the ‘mitti’ that might have thrilled stalwarts like Munshi Premchand – who in the early 1900s wrote about the reverse bleed of youths from villages to cities, where they often committed themselves to consumerist lifestyles. To be sure, internal migration from Indian villages to cities is still rampant. Cities are still seen as places of opportunities and facilities – from schools and offices to healthcare infrastructure.

Having said that, ‘Mitti: Ek Nayi Pehchaan’ envisages a future where educated people with means return to the villages to set up new-age startups that generate employment and grow produce in India, for the world. It’s a modern-day rendition of “mere desh ki dharti sona ugle”, but with the key injection of technology – and, often, big investment.

As the end-credits roll, 'Mitti: Ek Nayi Pehchaan' gives a shoutout to seven agri-tech founders. These founders are – Sumit Sheoran and Sudhanshu Rai of Precision Farming in Bengaluru; Harshit Godha of Indo Israel Avocado in Bhopal; Biplab Das of Kishalay Organics in the Sundarbans, West Bengal; Anushka Jaiswal who grows exotic vegetables in Lucknow; and IIT Bombay graduates Abhay Singh and Amit Kumar whose Eeki Foods in Kota is focused on farming with fewer resources, including land and water.

To be sure, these seven represent a tiny fraction of agri-entrepreneurs in India. Some others we have highlighted in Moneycontrol include Two Brothers, Mharo Khet, Fasal, VeGrow, BharatAgri, NinjaCart, and Farmart. Of course, these too are a fraction of the agricultural startups in India. As the end roll of ‘Mitti’ acknowledges,  “The agri-entrepreneurship landscape in India is experiencing significant growth. There are nearly 2800 AgriTech startups…”

Actor Ishwak Singh with the directors of Mitti: Ek Nayi Pehchaan. (Image via Instagram)

Though far from being a comprehensive list, what the startups – highlighted in ‘Mitti’, and those covered in Moneycontrol over the years – speak to, is a slow shift towards recreating opportunities in villages. These entrepreneurs have lived, studied and worked in world-class cities before choosing to make a living off the land. To be sure, these are often people who can access vast resources – acres of land, money/loans for polyhouse and other technologies, access to experts as well as new markets and the ability to market themselves and their products in places where they can command good prices for their organic/exotic products.

Yet their shift back to the village, to sustain themselves on agriculture, is a small hurrah for what could be.

(In the series, Raghav’s family land is spread over 40 acres in a prime spot – and his family has for years employed people willing to do anything he asks. He speaks with ease with the government official incharge of farmer welfare – “smooth”, as one his village cofounders puts it. And that confidence is an important resource that comes from his education and privilege, too.)

Of course, ‘Mitti’ – starring Shruti Sharma as the honest bureaucrat, Nikhil Jaiswal, Sharat Sonu as the loan recovery agent Girdhari, Alka Amin as Dadi, Diksha Juneja as Raghav's girlfriend in the city, Sushil Sonu, Piyush Kumar and Renita Kapoor in addition to Ishwak Singh – is not the first piece of content to tip a hat to government initiatives – in this case, Digital Agriculture Mission, AgriStack and more broadly Startup India. 'Toilet: Ek Prem Katha' (2017) and 'Sui Dhaga' (2018) are among a string of these efforts which have achieved varied degrees of success as general entertainment. But the series is – in parts – a throwback to another time when content creators sought to marry entertainment with social purpose.

Diksha Juneja and Shruti Sharma star opposite Ishwak Singh in 'Mitti: Ek Nayi Pehchaan' (images via instagram)