Announcements without money and policy changes, agriculture will not take a big leap?

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has placed agricultural productivity and resilience at the top of the nine priorities for developed India while presenting the budget for FY 2024-25. It is difficult to say whether the steps taken under this will be able to ensure a strong participation of agriculture in developed India. Because the steps taken for the agriculture sector in this budget represent a continuity and not a major change. These steps do not seem to be likely to transform agriculture and allied sector. The allocation of Rs 1.52 lakh crore made by the Finance Minister for agriculture and allied sector is only a partial increase and there is no major allocation for new schemes and announcements in the budget.

In the budget, the Finance Minister has said that the entire system of agricultural research will be reviewed. Under this, priority will be given to increasing productivity and research on climate-friendly varieties. At the same time, along with the public sector, the private sector will also be given funds for agricultural research. But there is no clarity about this funding in the entire budget. As far as the budget of the Department of Agricultural Education and Research is concerned, Rs 9941.09 crore has been allocated for it, which was Rs 9876 crore last year. In this way, how will agricultural research be rejuvenated without any new and big funds? There is silence in the budget on this issue. Whereas this is an important point. Along with improving the system of agricultural research, resources are needed on a large scale.

In the budget, it has been said to release 109 climate friendly and high yielding varieties. It takes four to five years to develop any new variety. So either these varieties are ready and have to be released or else if research on them starts now, it will take a long time for the results to come. It is not clear in this even in the announcement. While this is an important issue. Due to lack of better yielding varieties in the country, our average productivity of most crops is less than half of the highest productivity at the global level.

It has been said that one crore farmers will be connected to natural farming in the next two years. But there is a provision of Rs 365 crore in the budget for the scheme to promote natural farming which was Rs 459 crore last year but in reality only Rs 100 crore have been spent. There is no consensus even among the scientific community in the country on natural farming and food security. What has been the result of the government's efforts to promote natural farming in the past years, what effect has it had on production and farmers' income, this information was neither given in the budget nor has the Agriculture Ministry given any information.

Last year, it was said in the budget that one crore farmers will be connected to natural farming in three years. The same thing has been repeated this time too. The Finance Minister had announced natural farming up to a certain distance from both the banks of the Ganga two years ago. It would be better if the results of the old announcements are reviewed before moving ahead.

The steps announced regarding technology are important. There may be some benefits of promoting digitization in agriculture using Digital Public Infrastructure (DPE). But the question is what is the purpose of this process of digitization? How will the interests of farmers be ensured in digital agriculture? Currently, farmers have to register online for different crops and schemes every season. Many farmers are deprived of the benefits of the schemes. In such a situation, it will also have to be ensured that the data is not misused and the digital divide does not increase.

To increase the number of Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) under the agricultural loan system, the process of making KCC will be simplified at some places. But no change has been made in the interest rates in this budget.

A mission has been announced to achieve self-sufficiency in edible oils and pulses. But steps taken on this front in the last few years like increasing MSP and creating buffer stock have not yielded any beneficial results. It is hoped that working in mission mode will prove to be better. While we are dependent on imports for pulses, we meet about 62 percent of our edible oil needs through imports. This creates problems on both supply and price fronts and the money that should go into the pockets of our farmers is taken advantage of by foreign farmers.

Due to huge fluctuations in vegetable prices, the Reserve Bank of India and the government are not able to bring inflation to the targeted level. Schemes like TOP have not been successful. In such a situation, the announcement of budget for better production, marketing and storage of vegetables is a step in the right direction. But it was not disclosed how much budget has been allocated for this.

In the case of agriculture's allied sectors like dairy and fisheries, steps have been taken in the budget only to promote shrimp production and export. Its export has reached Rs 60 thousand crore but the value of milk production in the country has become more than the total food grains, there is no new step regarding it. Food processing is important for increasing the income of farmers, but its budget is also marginally higher than last year and there is no new scheme either.

It has been announced that a new policy will be brought for the benefit of farmers through cooperatives. For this, a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Suresh Prabhu during the previous government. We will have to wait till the policy provisions come up.

Actually, there are no major changes or announcements for agriculture and allied sectors in this year's budget. There is talk of taking some small and symbolic steps but no special financial provision has been made for them in the budget. Fertilizer subsidy is less than last year because the prices of fertilizers have come down in the global market. We can say that agriculture is definitely on the top of the government's nine priorities for developing India, but the kind of big provisions that were indicated in the Economic Survey are not there in this budget. In this way the government lost another opportunity to bring about major reforms in the agriculture sector.