Farm, food processing get further push; drones, startups to help growth
The government has renewed its focus on farming and food processing sectors in the Budget 2022, with an aim to boost farmers’ income, and announced a number of schemes and financial support for the sectors.
The government has renewed its focus on farming and food processing sectors in the Budget 2022, with an aim to boost farmers’ income, and announced a number of schemes and financial support for the sectors.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Budget allocation for the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has been raised marginally by 4.5 per cent to â‚ą1,32,513 crore for 2022-23 fiscal.
But the major boost has gone to the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying whose allocation has been increased by 44 per cent to â‚ą6,407.31 crore and for Food Processing Industries for whom â‚ą2,941.99 crore has been earmarked for the next fiscal, up by 2.25 times.
As part of the larger focus, one of the key areas the government is focussing on will be to reduce the dependence on the import of edible oils by increasing the production domestically.
The government is also planning major initiatives in the policy segment to promote agro-forestry and encourage production and processing of fruits and vegetables.
The big boost for agriculture will be the Kisan Drones, which will be used for a number of tasks such as crop assessment, digitisation of land records and spraying of insecticides.
For the financing of startups and enterprises in the agri-space, the government is planning to facilitate funding with blended capital raised under the co-investment model through Nabard.
“This is to finance startups for agriculture and rural enterprise relevant for farm produce value chain,” Sitharaman noted.
The activities of these startups will include inter-area support for farmer-producer organisations (FPOs), machinery for farmers on a rental basis at the farm level and technology, including invitee base, she added.
The finance minister further said the government will promote chemical-free natural farming throughout the country with a focus on farmers’ lands in five-kilometre wide corridors along the river Ganga in the first stage.
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For the delivery of digital and high-tech services to farmers, she said the government will launch a scheme of public-private partnership (PPP) model with the involvement of public sector research and extension institutions along with private agri-tech players and stakeholders of agri value chains.
States will be encouraged to revise syllabi of agricultural universities to meet the needs of natural zero budget and organic farming, modern-day agriculture, value addition and management, she added.
On the procurement of agri-crops, the minister said the government’s procurement of wheat and paddy at the minimum support price (MSP) during 2021-22 will cover 1,208 lakh tonnes from 163 lakh farmers.
“₹2.37 lakh crore will be the direct payment of MSP value to their accounts,” Sitharaman said.
As 2023 has been announced as the International Year of Millets, Sitharaman said the government will support post-harvest support for enhancing domestic consumption of millet products internationally.
For the next fiscal, the government has allocated an estimated budget of â‚ą6,75,000 crore for PM-KISAN, â‚ą15,500 crore for the crop insurance scheme, â‚ą7,183 crore for the Krishonnati Yojana, â‚ą10,433 crore for the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and about â‚ą1,500 crore for Market Intervention Scheme-Price Support Scheme.
