'Daily Farm Income Is Rs 27': Expert Says Why Budget 2023 Should Ensure Guaranteed Income For Farmers

Budget 2023 for the agriculture sector should revolve around ways and provisions to provide farmers with a 'guaranteed income'. Here's what the expert said on the idea of cutting fertiliser subsidies.

Expectations from Union Budget for the agriculture sector and farmers are upbeat.   

Source : Getty

Union Budget 2023: Fiscal year 2022-23 will come to an end soon and all eyes are on the Union Budget 2023, to be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1. This annual Budget will be the last complete financial statement before the Lok Sabha 2024 elections. The focus of the Union Budget, which got marred for a couple of years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, may again shift back to the traditional core sectors, one of which is agriculture.

On February 28, 2016, at a farmers' rally in Bareilly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his government’s intention of doubling the income of farmers by 2022. As the year has ended, the expectations from Union Budget for the agriculture sector and farmers are upbeat.   

Budget 2022 — Provisions And Allocations

Budget 2022-23 gave a provision of Rs 1.24 lakh crore for the implementation of various agricultural development and welfare schemes. Apart from that Rs 8,513.62 crore was allocated during Budget 2022-23 to the Department of Agricultural Research and Education.

As per the Budget 2022, Gross Value Added by the agriculture and allied sector was 18.8 per cent in FY21-22 and the agricultural activities recorded a growth rate of 3.9 per cent in FY21-22 (until January 31, 2022).

Some other salient highlights of the 2022 Budget was promoting chemical-free natural farming starting with farmers’ lands close to river Ganga. The Centre in its previous budget had talked about promoting post-harvest value addition, consumption and branding of millet products.

Sithraman's Budget 2022 also focused on the delivery of digital and hi-tech services to farmers via Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) mode. The usage of Kisan Drones and launching a fund with blended capital to finance agriculture startups were some of the focus areas talked about in the last Union Budget.

Agriculture Budget 2023 Expectations

While the political equation of doubling the farm income looms large on the head of the NDA government, the demand is to have a "guaranteed income" for farmers in order to revive their economic situation and the government should nudge their way to increasing fertiliser subsidies rather than backtracking on the existing provisions.   

Citing the 'Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India' report, agricultural policy analyst Devinder Sharma told ABP Live that the daily farm income of Rs 27 is not sufficient.

"In the last 75 years, farmers in India are in terrible distress. This is simply because farmers have been denied their rightful income. The farmers or the agriculture sector have deliberately kept impoverished," Sharma said.

"Latest study that came out for farmers 'Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households' in 2021 which is based on a study of 2019, tells us that the average income of farmers in this country is Rs 10,200 per month approximately. This figure includes farming and non-farming income, if you just include farm income that comes to Rs 27 per day. Now, what should the policy framework aim at? This is a clear indication that the farmer's condition is not in a good state in India," he said.

The expert said only a guaranteed income to farmers and better provisions in the Budget is the necessity of the time. 

"Providing Farmers with a guaranteed income is the need of the hour. When I say guaranteed income, I am talking about a way of guaranteed price. No profession can thrive on this kind of income (Rs 27 per day on farm income). All efforts have to be on providing farmers with respectable income. This is challenging not just for this government, but all the previous governments as well," the expert added.    

The expert vehemently opposed the idea of any kind of cutback on the farm subsidies or high fertiliser subsidies owing Centre facing a challenge on the fiscal front.

"If you do not provide the fertiliser subsidy, how do you provide the fertilisers...Let us be clear, India needs to increase its food production or maintain its food production and there is a need for chemical fertilisers. So therefore the government has a little option now but to provide the subsidy," Devinder Sharma said.

"In this Rs 40 lakh crore budget, only Rs 2.5 lakh crore goes to the farmer or for fertiliser subsidies, is that causing the problem... Even if it is increased substantially, is that really a question," the expert said.

"Agriculture will receive more attention in the forthcoming budget and therefore the possibility of some out-of-the-box thinking leading to a revival of the farming sector. Doubling the direct income support under the PM-Kisan scheme from the existing Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000 per year should be one mechanism to supplement farmers’ income," Devinder Sharma mentioned in his blog on January 28.