Did Agriculture And Allied Sector Get Due Focus?

Agriculture and allied activities, which clocked a growth of 3.4% at constant prices during 2020-21 (first advance estimate) according to the Economic Survey, did not get due attention in the Union Budget announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Monday.

While health sector got due priority in the listing, though not adequately in the allocation, agriculture and rural development seemed to be lower down in government priority list not just in the allocation but also lack of adequate focus on how to improve productivity and ensure better incomes for the farmers.

The Finance Minister’s stocktaking of government procurement for maintaining buffer stocks seemed to smack more of an exercise for negating the farmers’ justification of holding protests for over two months than to really address their grievances.

Former Union Minister and economist, Y K Alagh, feels the  Rs. 1,31,531 crores agriculture and allied sectors budget has spelt no step forward, “as it is only a repeat of what has already been done” or proposals that have long awaited implementation.

The rationale behind high government procurement of food stocks and agriculture products like pulses, oilseeds and cotton, etc. at minimum support price (MSP) is not truly understood.

On the one hand, the government has admitted that middlemen or ‘arthiyas’ benefit in the whole process of government stock procurement, yet it has been buying more than the envisaged requirement for food security and welfare programmes.

For instance, in September 2020, government godowns held 70 million tonnes of rice and wheat in stocks, whereas food-security norms require total stocks to be 41.1 million tonnes.

The additional stocks in the absence of proper storage and handling has in the past led to spoilage of stocks and thus waste of not just food grains but also resources spent on buying, stocking, handling and transportation of the stocks.

The government emphasis on boosting investment in fisheries, seaweed farming, livestock breeding, and handling are all welcome, but the way forward has to be more proactive. Not a repeat of the vision statement spelt out year after year with hardly any movement forward whether in providing better inputs and knowhow to improve productivity or helping farmers raise their income.

According to Sudhir Panwar, farmer leader and former member of Uttar Pradesh planning commission, the agriculture budgetary allocation is on expected lines with higher provisioning for providing credit.

“This only shows that farmers continue to need more credit as agriculture is not generating adequate incomes for it to be ploughed back,” says Panwar.

The Economic Survey 2020-21 notes that “Given the large proportion of resource constrained small and marginal farmers in India, timely availability of adequate credit is fundamental for the success of farming activities.”

The agricultural credit flow target for the year 2019-20 was fixed at Rs. 13,50,000 crores and against this target the achievement was Rs. 13,92,469,81 crores. The agriculture credit flow target for 2020-21 has been fixed at Rs. 15,00,000 crores and till November 30, a sum of Rs. 9,73,517.80 crores were disbursed.

The Survey also notes that the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund announced as a part of Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan will further boost credit flow to the agriculture sector.

According to the Economic Survey, consequent upon Budget announcement on the inclusion of livestock sector in Kisan Credit Card in February 2020, 1.5 crores dairy farmers of milk cooperatives and milk producer companies’ were targeted to provide Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) as part of Prime Minister’s Atma Nirbhar Bharat Package.

As of mid-January 2021, a total of 44,673 Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) have been issued to fishermen and fish farmers and an additional 4.04 lakh applications from fishers and fish farmers are with the banks at various stages of issuance.

By Lola Nayar