Some hits and misses for Indian agriculture

FM shared her vision of delivering digital and high-tech services to farmers

Today’s budget came at a critical time. 2022-23 is the year by which PM Modi has promised to deliver doubled incomes to Indian farmers So, hopes and expectations were high about big-ticket programs and schemes targeted at delivering on the promise. Alas, there was no mention of the ‘doubling income’ in FM Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech today.

However, there was a renewed vision presented to the country today by the FM who sought “to lay the foundation and give a blueprint to steer the economy over the AmritKaal of the next 25 years – from India at 75 to India at 100.” With this spirit, FM presented the Union Budget 2022-23 today.

In this brief article, I write about the budget misses and hits for the Indian agriculture sector.

Of the total budget of Rs 1.24 lakh crore of Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, about 83 per cent is budgeted for three programs/schemes: (i) crop insurance or Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) (about 13 per cent); (ii) interest subsidy for short term credit (about 16 per cent) and (iii) PM Kisan (about 55 per cent). The remaining about 17 per cent of the department’s budget is to be used for undertaking activities to support agriculture.

Also read: Union Budget 2022 and agriculture: Not much to cheer

Of this 17 per cent (or Rs 21,000 crore), about half (Rs 10, 433 crore) is earmarked for Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY). RKVY is a 2007-08 scheme launched by the previous government. This scheme offers greater autonomy to state governments to plan and prioritise how they want to use resources under this scheme.

States draw plans based on their specific priorities, local issues and challenges, taking their agro-climatic conditions, natural resource challenges and infrastructural deficits and priorities into account. Overtime, budgetary allocations under this scheme have been falling. However, this year, RKVY allocation has been increased by more than 5-fold, from Rs 2,000 crore (RE2021-22) to Rs 10,433 crore.

Often GOI has been criticised for not allowing states the autonomy to draw up a state-specific plan of action to reform their agricultural sector. This is a good step as it makes available a greater quantum of scheme funds for states to tap to take their agricultural reforms and growth forward.

There were many disruptive ideas in the budget. The focus on using technology like drones for crop assessment, digitisation of land records, spraying of insecticides, and nutrients is a welcome step towards digitalising the sector.

Budget 2022 Live on DH

FM also shared her vision of delivering digital and high-tech services to farmers. Syncing startups with FPOs is another step in bringing technology closer to farmers. The renewed focus on nutrition along with food security is a welcome step.

Some misses include a 25 per cent reduction in the MGNREGA scheme allocation when India continues to reel under an unemployment and job crisis. Even when climate change challenges are observed for real, a reduction in the GOI’s crop insurance scheme points to the plan losing steam and relevance when ideally its allocation should grow manifold each year in light of growing vulnerabilities of Indian agriculture.

Even though growing literature acknowledges the power of aggregating farmers as a group or as FPOs, the budgetary allocation for formation and promotion of FPOs has fallen by little less than a third. Centrality of Indian farmers and farming continues to be stronger than ever. Even though the dream of doubling incomes finds no mention in the current budget speech, the schemes and programs appear well-conceived and we pray they deliver to empower our farmers.

(Shweta Saini is a Senior Visiting Fellow, ICRIER, New Delhi)