2022 has been a challenging year for the global food system, to say the least. It uncovered several structural weaknesses in the wake of challenges such as extreme weather events, supply-chain disruptions, geo-political tensions, international conflicts, and growing food wastage. The year also exposed our inability to manage global hunger and food security, reversing the progress made over decades of efforts.
Budget 2023-24 predictions for agriculture sector
Krishna Kumar, CO-Founder & CEO of Cropin made the following predictions:
Regenerative agriculture to reduce soil degradation
We expect more investments to happen in soil conservation and biodiversity in the next couple of years. Good soil health is at the root of productive agriculture. A lot more needs to be done on this front to check soil degradation, and maintain and improve soil health. Farmers need to be guided by data-driven decisions on the optimal use of water, pesticides, and agrochemicals and regenerative farming practices that can nurture soil health. Policymakers, agrochemical companies, technology players, and NGOs will come together with new initiatives and investments to safeguard the soil.
Enhanced focus on smallholder farmer empowerment
There has been a massive focus by private players, governments, and international organizations/development agencies to build farmer-centric solutions over the past couple of years. We expect this trend will significantly pick up pace in 2023 and beyond. Of the estimated 580 million farmers in the world, a staggering 500 million are small-holder farmers who are not easily accessible. Global food-system stakeholders have realized that meaningful and enduring transformation of agriculture is not possible unless smallholder farmers at the grassroots level are trained and enabled to adopt smarter, more efficient, and sustainable ways of farming.
Digitization and intuitive, inexpensive, and easily accessible technology can go a long way in making this happen. The Government of India’s Kisan Drones project to use drones for crop assessment, digitization of land records and spraying of insecticides to boost productivity is a great example of making technology more easily available for small farmers. Farmer empowerment at the grassroots will take centerstage in boardroom conversations of agri-businesses next year.
Here's what Ravi Annavarapu, President of FMC India predicted for the budget 2023:
This year’s budget outlay must be directed towards not only cushioning but also adding resilience to Indian agriculture. As India is likely to become the most populous country this year and has ambitions to be a major food supplier to the world, the need of the hour is to ensure higher productivity with minimal environmental impact. The investment made in agricultural research and development (R&D) pays back many times over in the form of increased production or mitigated losses, as well as higher incomes for farmers. The private sector players are dedicating a significant share of resources & investment in research, promoting sustainable agricultural practices in rural India, and must be incentivized or allowed tax exemptions basis the impact created by their initiatives. In the upcoming Union Budget. It will also be critical to focus on creating an enabling ecosystem, with a faster registration process to introduce newer technologies and molecules for better productivity. This will be vital for an inspiring India. the registration process to introduce newer technologies and molecules for better productivity. This will be vital for an inspiring India.
Gram Unnati’s founder Aneesh Jain also shared his expectations on the budget for the agritech sector:
With millions of Indians depending on agriculture as the primary source of their livelihood, the sector has always been, especially in the last few years, a key focus of the Union Budget. This year too we expect the government to support interventions that will enable farmers to sustainably improve their incomes.
To enable this, farmers need to adopt new crops & technologies which have the potential to drastically improve yields and returns. Some incentives or schemes for setting up demonstrations will go a great distance in promoting new crops & technology adoption by farmers. These demonstrations should however be conducted in concentrated clusters at a village or gram panchayat level to enable sufficient production in one place otherwise market linkages might become a challenge.
It might also be useful to incentivize the use of modern and innovative crop nutrition solutions. Schemes in this direction will reduce farmers’ dependency on Urea and DAP.
Lastly, to support the integration of FPOs and agri-tech companies in the agricultural supply chains, Credit Guarantees for Working Capital lines could be explored. These will enable timely payments to farmers and efficient linkages with markets, especially by FPOs.
