Budget 2026: Govt Unveils Major Push For Agriculture, Allied Sectors To Raise Farmers' Income

(MENAFN- KNN India) New Delhi, Feb 1 (KNN) Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday proposed a slew of measures to diversify farm outputs, increase productivity, enhance farmers' incomes, and create new employment opportunities.

Presenting Budget 2026-27, Sitharaman announced plans to promote high-value crops across various regions. This includes coconut, sandalwood, cocoa and cashew in coastal areas, agarwood in the North East, and nuts such as almonds, walnuts and pine nuts in hilly regions.

She said that initiatives would be undertaken for integrated development of 500 reservoirs and Amrit Sarovars and also strengthen the fisheries value chain in coastal areas and enable market linkages involving start-ups and women-led groups together with Fish Farmers Producer Organisations (FPOs).

Sitharaman noted that India is the world's largest coconut producer, with nearly 10 million farmers reliant on the crop for their livelihoods. To strengthen competitiveness, she proposed a Coconut Promotion Scheme aimed at boosting output and productivity through measures such as replacing old and unproductive trees with improved saplings and varieties in major coconut-growing states.

A dedicated programme is also proposed for Indian cashew and cocoa to make India self-reliant in raw cashew and cocoa production and processing, enhance export competitiveness and transform Indian Cashew and Indian Cocoa into premium global brands by 2030.

Linking sandalwood to India's social and cultural heritage, the Finance Minister said that the Government will partner with State Governments to promote focused cultivation and post-harvest processing to restore the Indian Sandalwood ecosystem.

To rejuvenate old, low-yielding orchards and expand high-density cultivation of walnuts, almonds and pine nuts, the Government will support a dedicated programme to enhance farmer incomes and in bringing value addition by engaging youth.

The Finance Minister also proposed to launch Bharat-VISTAAR(Virtually Integrated System to Access Agricultural Resources), a multilingual AI tool that shall integrate the AgriStack portals and the ICAR package on agricultural practices with AI systems. This will enhance farm productivity, enable better decisions for farmers and reduce risk by providing customised advisory support.

Building on the success of the Lakhpati Didi Programme, the Minister proposes to help women take the next step from credit-led livelihoods to being owners of enterprises. Self-Help Entrepreneur (SHE) Marts will be set up as community-owned retail outlets within the cluster level federations through enhanced and innovative financing instruments.

(KNN Bureau)

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