Budget 2022: Government to promote natural farming, tech-savvy methods for crop diversification

Vibha Sharma
New Delhi, February 1

The Centre will promote tech-savvy methods like drones, chemical-free natural farming along Ganga and public-private partnerships for delivery of digital and high-tech services to help farmers grow diverse farm products as well as capital procurement for farm-based start-ups during the financial year 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said presenting Budget 2022-23 in the Parliament on Tuesday.

The FM said the government will promote the use of ‘Kisan Drones’ for crop assessment, digitisation of land records and spraying of insecticides. A fund with blended capital, raised under the co-investment model, will also be facilitated through NABARD to finance start-ups for agriculture and rural enterprise, relevant for farm produce value chain.

“Activities for these start-ups will include, support for FPOs, machinery for farmers on rental basis at farm level, and technology including IT-based support,” she said.

The FM 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. “Rs 2.37 lakh crore will be the direct payment of MSP value to their accounts,” she said. Since 2023 has been announced as the International Year of Millets, the government will give post-harvest support for enhancing domestic consumption of millet products internationally, she added.

The government will also promote chemical-free natural farming throughout the country with a focus on farmers’ lands in five-km corridors along Ganga in the first stage.

The FM also said that to reduce the country’s dependence on imports of edible oils, a rationalised and comprehensive scheme to increase domestic production of oilseeds will be implemented.

However, the “silence” in the Budget speech on “doubling the farmers’ income by 2022”, as assured by top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on several occasions in the past, was termed  “disappointing” by agriculture experts, who also pointed to “reduced MSP” and other subsidies.

 “Expectations from the Budget have all come crashing down,” agriculture expert Devinder Sharma said. “They should’ve told us what happened to the assurance of doubling the farmers’ income by 2022. What happened to legalising MSP, rather the allocation reduced from Rs 2.48 lakh crores to 2.37 lakh crores.

“We expected budgetary allocations for loans to farmers to increase, which did not happen. The fact is agriculture has been completely ignored in this Budget. How will farmers income increase with drones and start-ups?” Sharma questioned.

Meanwhile, Prof Sudhir Panwar, agriculture expert and former member of UP planning commission, said after repeal of farm laws “it seems the Government preferred status quo approach in farm sector”.

“After year-long agitation and repeal of farm laws farmers were expecting financial stimulus to augment farm income. However, except natural farming on Ganga Bank, use of drone technology, incentives to agri-startup all other budgetary provisions are repetitive.

“Reduced allocation on MSP purchase, MNREGA, fertiliser and petroleum subsidy indicative of change in Government philosophy, which favour direct transfer to farmers like PM-KISAN schemes than subsidy on inputs,” said Panwar.

Later, responding to the question on when can the farmers’ income be expected to double, Sitharaman, pointed to the MSP disbursed and record procurement achieved, said: “We are well on our way to helping farmers substantially to increase the income”.

Despite the increase in prices of fertilisers like urea farmers were not burdened, she said.

Government subsidies on fertilisers, micro-nutrient micro, Rs 6000 PM-Kisan, incentives for beekeeping and honey cultivation, all kinds of market linkages through e-commerce, the push for solar energy and uploading to the grid, post-harvest processing, are all steps to improve farmers income, she added.

Meanwhile, 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. The FM also said that the government will bring in policies and required legislative changes to promote agroforestry and private forestry. Financial support will be provided to farmers belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes who want to take up agroforestry, she added.

BOX: FM: Procurement of wheat in Rabi 2021-22 and the estimated procurement of paddy in Kharif 2021-22 will cover 1208 LMT wheat and paddy from 163 lakh farmers, and Rs 2.37 lakh crore direct payment of MSP value to their accounts.

Land Records Management: States will be encouraged to adopt Unique Land Parcel Identification Number to facilitate IT-based management of records. The adoption or linkage with National Generic Document Registration System (NGDRS) with the ‘One-Nation One-Registration Software’ will be promoted as an option for uniform process for registration and ‘anywhere registration’ of deeds & documents.