Sharad Joshi did his M.Com. from Sydenham College, Bombay, 1957and served as a Lecturer in Economics and Statistics, University of Poona, 1957-58. He also served in the Indian Postal Service (Class I) 1958-68; he Chief Informatics Service, an the International Bureau, UPU, Bern, Switzerland, 1968-77.

An Agriculturist and a Peasant Leader, he was the founder of Shetkari Sanghatana Peasants' Organisation in Maharashtra, an economistic, non-political, secular and non-violent peasant movement that is opposed to all subsidies and militates towards non-intervention by the State in the economy and particularly in the commodity markets.

He was also the founder member of the Kisan Coordination Committee (KCC1) comprising of sister organisations from 14 states. He led a number of mass agitations in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana etc. for remunerative prices of onions, sugar cane, tobacco, milk, paddy, cotton, against hike in electricity tariffs, for liquidation of rural debts and against State dumping in domestic markets. Original and persistent propounder of the postulate that the Government imposed negative subsidies on farmers as a matter of deliberate policy which has, since, been vindicated.

He is also the founder of the largest organisation of rural women Shetkari Mahila Aghadi (SMA) celebrated for its work for women's property rights notably for the 'Lakshmi Mukti' programme that has conferred land titles on lakhs of rural housewives.