What can the budget do for agriculture

The pre-budget consultations are on. In the agri-space, what could be the possible suggestions for Union Budget 2025-26? We hold that whatever policies and budgetary allocations the government makes, it must make agriculture more productive, competitive, remunerative to farmers, and also benign to the planet's natural resources.We know that our production system is being challenged by climate change. In India, temperatures have risen by 0.7 degrees Celsius compared to 1951, and precipitation (July to September) has fallen by 6 per cent. This is increasing the risk to the agri-production basket. Developing climate-resilient agriculture will need more resources for agri-R&D. It is currently less than 0.5 per cent of agri-GDP, and needs to be doubled to at least 1 per cent.

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It will also need to change farming practices to ensure soils have enough organic carbon and retain more moisture. While the recently launched Natural Farming Mission aims to promote sustainable agriculture, it cannot feed the growing population of India, which is likely to touch 1.67 billion by 2050. Nourishing soils through appropriate fertilisation, be it through biofertilisers or chemical fertilisers, is critical. But fertilisers have to be applied in the right quantities, with the right balance of macronutrients like nitrogen (N), phosphate (P), and potash (K) as well as micronutrients like iron, zinc, boron, etc. The current fertiliser subsidy policy does not promote the right usage of fertilisers. Urea is massively subsidised compared to other nutrients, leading to overuse of N and underuse of P, K, and other micronutrients. Technological innovations and products such as nano-urea and nano-DAP, or Single or Triple Superphosphates, etc, have limited penetration in the backdrop of the highly skewed subsidy policy in favour of granular urea. If the Narendra Modi government can set this right — it can, no doubt, be done — then that will be a big service to our farmers and soils. There is ample data on fertiliser sales, soil health cards, PM-KISAN, etc to pull all these together and do direct income transfer on a per-hectare basis. This would allow freeing prices of fertilisers from controls, will help restore the N, P and K balance, as also of micronutrients. It will plug leakages of urea, improve nutrient use efficiency, and reduce