Amidst the gloomy scenario of agriculture sector reporting a negative growth of 1.8% due to severe drought, the State Budget for 2024-25 has announced a slew of innovative schemes for agricultural development, including a scheme titled Karnataka Raitha Samruddhi Yojane for promoting integrated and sustainable farming for boosting farm incomes.
The proposed scheme, which is in tune with the present day requirement of making farming a sustainable activity through integration of allied sectors, seeks to create awareness among farmers about ways of increasing their incomes by taking up a combination of activities related to agriculture, animal husbandry, horticulture, and dairy farming.
The scheme involves technical counselling by experts on various aspects, including information on soil testing and soil characteristics, selection of crops based on soil characteristics and market demands, new farm practices and technologies, storage and value addition besides creating market linkages.
The Budget also seeks to create the Agriculture Development Authority under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister to facilitate effective implementation of policies related to agriculture and allied activities, besides ensuring proper co-ordination among these departments.
Drought mitigation
In a bid to tackle serious drought situation in a State that has largest tracts of drought-prone land next only to Rajasthan, the Budget has not only continued Krishi Bhagya scheme, but also announced measures to build further on the scheme.
To promote sustainable agriculture in drought-affected and rainfed areas and for soil and water conservation, the Budget announced that 5,000 water bodies will be created over five years. According to sources, these water bodies will be bigger than the Krishi Hondas (agricultural ponds) and aim at providing protective irrigation to crops during summer in a bid to ensure that they do not wilt away. Also, the government reportedly intends to promote community usage of water bodies through this scheme.
Food Processing Directorate
The highlight of the Budget is that it focused on food processing to increase farmers’ incomes and announced setting up a separate Food Processing Directorate under Agriculture Department. The objective of the directorate will be to avoid wastage of agricultural produce and to help farmers earn remunerative prices for their crops. All food processing schemes under different departments will now be converged and implemented effectively through the proposed directorate.
In addition to this, food parks will be established near airports under Public-Private Partnership to promote processing, value addition and export of agricultural and horticultural produce. In 2024-25, food parks will be established in Sogane in Shivamogga district, Ittangihala in Vijayapura District and Pujenahalli village in Bengaluru rural district.
It has also announced formation of post-harvest processing centres (Packhouse) and value addition/processing units under public-private partnership.
Stressing on convergence of technology, it has announced that a database will be prepared to forecast crop productivity using modern technologies like satellite pictures, sensors, and machine learning algorithm. In addition to this, an Agri Accelerator Platform will be created to impart supplementary training and provide guidance and support to farmer produce organisations (FPO) to strengthen their capacity and improve their performance.
In an innovative measure, the budget has announced an awareness programmes for farmers to identify carbon sequestering horticultural crops that can be sold in international markets in the form of Carbon Credit thereby helping augment their income.
Measures have been announced to take up Phase-2 development of Ramanagara and Shidlaghatta hitech markets at a cost of ₹250 crore.
Veterinary polyclinic facility which is currently available at the district level will be extended in phases to the talukas. In the first phase, 20 taluk-level veterinary hospitals will be upgraded at a cost of ₹10 crore. ₹100 crore is being given for the construction of 200 new buildings for veterinary institutions.
The other measures include setting up a Community Seed Bank to preserve locally bred seeds on the verge of extinction, developing R. K. Shala Agricultural Farm in Bengaluru under public-private partnership as a Knowledge Centre disseminating agricultural techniques, introducing farmers to e-SAP software developed by University of Agriculture Sciences, Raichur to advise them on pests, diseases and nutrient management.
