Fortunately, there are a number of efforts dedicated towards teaching and empowering the farmers (but the government seems to be minimally involved.)

One initiative is headed by youth leaders of The Art of Living, who have for a while now been holding free workshops for farmers–teaching them water conservation and chemical-free farming techniques, and promoting alternative crops…

There’s another effort which promotes eco-friendly neem-based pest control agents as an alternative to the hard-line mainstream chemicals they’re forced to use with their GM-seeds; and there are several more efforts dedicated towards switching to organic cotton farming (also see here )

Here’s a few more articles/efforts I just came across

Sustainable Agriculture in arid zone of Gujarat
Seeds of Hope
More Rice with Less Water
Can Sustainable Agriculture Prevent Suicide?

Also, I highly recommend checking out navdanya.org, (founded by Vandana Shiva)

I hope this helps Abby, and thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts… Ahni

I am interested to learn of current measures being undertaken to assist farmers in the region in shifting to production of more sustainable crops, probably crops less water and chemical intensive. It seems, with the advent of the green revolution, we as a society, have no little concern for the inputs that are needed to produce our foods. And, the global economic system is set up in a manner to gain a profit from these inputs, such as pesticides, herbicides, etc