What Indian Agriculture hopes to see in Budget 2019

Strengthening Agri-export sector: Currently agricultural export constitutes 10% of the country’s exports but the majority of its exports are low-value, raw or semi-processed and marketed in bulk. The share of India’s high-value and value-added agri-produce is less than 15%. The Agri Export Policy was framed by the Government with a focus on agriculture export-oriented production, export promotion, better farmer realisation and synchronisation within policies and programmes of the Government of India. There is thus a need to leverage the supporting policy environment to substantially increase the quantum of agri-exports from the country.

Promoting Agri-startups: Agricultural start-ups in India are still in a nascent stage. The combined revenue of all agritech start-ups in India is estimated to be less than 100 million USD. There is a huge scope to further increase the number of agri-startups, supporting innovation and employment generation. Additionally, key issues such as collateral requirement for loans, availability of growth capital, taxation on angel investment, applicability to mainstream government schemes need to be addressed.

Strengthening policy environment for promotion of PPP in agriculture: While public private partnerships (PPP) is a common measure when it comes to manufacturing or urban sector, agriculture sector still lags behind in harnessing this opportunity. There is a pressing need to include private players through transparent and supportive polices to increase the use of technology, innovation and quality in the sector. The Government is shifting focus to drive the agriculture sector towards growth and there are certain areas of policy reforms that can be targeted to ensure holistic growth in the sector.

Better Market Linkages and integration: The farmers need be better connected to the end consumer. The number of stakeholders across the agricultural value chain need to be reduced so that they have better and direct access to markets and the end consumer. This would ensure optimum remuneration to farmers with reduction in value chain leakages. Initiatives such as e-NAM, formation of the Farmer Producer’s Organisations (FPOs) and the Farmer Producer Company (FPCs) are some of the steps taken in the direction of improving forward and backward linkages. However, further strengthening and upscaling of such initiatives is required.