Budget 2023: Agriculture in climate change era just not getting the governmental spending it needs

The government made a steep change in agricultural policy last year. It eased the regulations for genome-editing technologies and also approved the first genetically-modified (GM) food crop, GM mustard. (Representative image)

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has made a few feel-good announcements on agriculture in the budget but has not backed her talk with money. Her announcements also do not tackle the pressing issues – climate change impact and the stretched dependence on edible oil imports.

Mission-mode Sans Funds

The government made a steep change in agricultural policy last year. It eased the regulations for genome-editing technologies and also approved the first genetically-modified (GM) food crop, GM mustard. Building on that, the Finance Minister could have announced a project in mission mode for enhancing the area under mustard.

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In 2018, the country’s edible oil processors had urged the government to raise the area under mustard from 6.5 million hectares to 10 million hectares, by incentivising wheat growers in Punjab and Haryana. This would have meshed with the Oil Palm Mission which the government had launched in 2021. But this pressing issue has been passed over.

Instead, the FM has announced a programme in public private partnership to enhance the productivity of extra-long staple fibre cotton. India grows limited quantities of this variety and imports much of it, as it is susceptible to pest and disease attacks. It is not a thrust area. The FM has not provided any money for this.

Modernising Agriculture

Building on the success of digital payments, the FM has announced that the government will support digital public infrastructure in agriculture for crop planning and estimation, monitoring of plant health and improved access to agricultural inputs, credit and insurance. She had also said that an agriculture accelerator fund will be set up. No money is mentioned. Meanwhile, the Economic Survey says India has more than 1,000 agritech startups.

I expected the FM to go big on tackling the challenges posed by climate change. This would mean promotion of climate smart technologies like no- or low- tillage agriculture to curb tractor emissions, direct seeding of rice and wheat, micro irrigation, crop rotation and the use of soil microbes and bio-pesticides.

The FM has focussed on mitigating the impact of climate change in a limited way. There is a thrust on the cultivation of millets which are low in water use and are grown mainly by small and marginal farmers in dryland areas.

Gung-ho On Millets, Organic

India produces about 50 million tonnes of millets, or a quarter of the combined production of wheat and rice. Millets are known as coarse grains. They were eaten by the poor. But because of lifestyle diseases they are being preferred by the rich in urban settings.

For millets to become staple food, people will have to acquire a taste for them. This requires innovations on the processing front. Their shelf life will have to be increased. Their productivity will also have to be raised from an average of 1.3 tonnes per hectare so that India can produce enough to meet increased demand (when it happens). The FM has said the Indian Institute of Millet Research in Hyderabad will be made a centre of excellence. But no allocation has been made.

The FM continues to pay ideological homage to natural farming. About one crore farmers will be trained in it, she says. Organic or natural farming is a fad. It is also an area prone to fraud. In February 2021, a New York Times investigation found that much of India’s organic cotton exports were fake.

More-from-less Mantra

That year, the US Department of Agriculture also ended a pact with Apeda, India’s export promotion authority, that allowed it to certify agencies to issue USDA organic produce certificates after it detected fraud in the issuances. Organic farming is also not compatible with sustainable intensification, as it is low yield agriculture.

I am also sore that the budget for agricultural research and education has been raised by a meagre Rs 800 crore to Rs 9,500 crore. India needs to raise its agricultural research and development budget substantially and also get more bang for the bucks it expends on R&D. We need new age seeds for more-from-less agriculture (unlike the Green Revolution which was high-input, high-output agriculture).

Vivian Fernandes is a business journalist for more than three decades. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.