<p>The story of the food processing sector is mostly left out of India’s remarkable growth story, even though it was identified as a sunrise sector in the 1980s, and continues to be a growing and strategically important sector. The sector’s growth story illustrates the opportunities and challenges associated with increasing international integration. It also provides evidence that the state’s role in nurturing a sector—its ability to step in and fill gaps—is necessary to take advantage of domestic and international market opportunities. At the same time, it demonstrates the limits of the state’s autonomy in shaping policy. While India’s federal government was able to play a role in addressing several developmental challenges the sector faced, it was unable to amend laws in agricultural marketing that experts suggested were necessary for the growth of the sector. The sector’s linkage to agriculture along with India’s federal structure limited the extent to which the state could shape the policy framework the sector faces. The complex sectoral political network that has shaped the sector’s growth story includes the state, international markets and institutions, India’s federal structure, federalized party system, and a range of powerful actors including agrobusiness and farmers’ groups.</p>