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‘Budget aims to raise farm yield, lower ecological damage’

Food security and organic farming can go hand in hand. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today gave a green signal to efforts under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture to promote green manuring and organic farming while talking about bringing in the Food Securtiy Act this year, settling the debate on high pesticide and chemical fertiliser use in Punjab and Haryana.

He said his government is mulling to also bring urea, one of the most widely used fertilisers, under nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) regime like other fertlisers. Under the NBS, subsidies on fertilisers are provided on the basis of their nutrient composition. “The move of direct cash subsidy for fertilisers will provide level playing field to biofertilisers. Punjab, for instance, has enough potash in its soil. So, every state has its own soil nutrient requirement. And the NBS regime will calculate the subsidy on basis of the nutrients. Without Central subsidy, DAP will cost Rs 1,100 a bag while bio-fertilisers will remain at Rs 800 per 50 kg bag. So, the price variant will make organic farming a more economical option for farmers,” says Sanjeev Nagpal, managing director, NASA Agro Industries Limited.

The Union Budget 2011-12 also talked of infusing more money into the farm sector, both by way of investment in infrastructure, more credit for farm loans and interest subvention to farmers who pay back their loans by one per cent to three per cent, thus reducing the effective interest to four per cent. On loans, the finance minister also increased credit flow to farmers from Rs 375,000 crore to Rs 475,000 crore. As part of long-term measures, Mukherjee announced setting up of 15 new Mega Food Parks to overhaul the supply chain mechanism, announcing infrastructure status for cold storage sector.

Listing creation of huge food storage facilities as a priority, he announced a Rs 2,000 crore corpus for creating additional warehousing facilities. He reduced excise duty on micro irrigation systems and cattle feed. He also increased allocations for Green Revolution through cultivation of pulses in rain-fed areas, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, encouraging farmers to produce vegetables and oil palm production. “ Overall, it is a welcome budget for the agriculture sector. It seems to have been made with food inflation and agriculture in mind. The finance minister has mentioned about Food Security Bill and pegged the agricultural growth for 2011-12 at 5.5 per cent. With cultivable area almost stagnant it has become imperative to increase farm productivity,” Akshay Bector, Managing Director, Mrs Bector Foods Specialities Limited, said

However, others feel though the intentions were to boost farm growth, the proposals fall short of what's needed. “For the farm sector, the intentions are good. But the budgetary allocations for the sector are a pittance. The FM has talked about enhancing productivity but failed to outline the roadmap for enhancing productivity,” Yoginder Diwan, Managing Director of Himalayan Vegefruit Limited, said.

RM Khanna, Chairman CII Northern Region, said greater focus on agriculture, achieving self sufficiency in pulses and oilseeds, promoting nutri-cereals, initiative on vegetable clusters and food parks will all help in taming inflation and implementing the food security Act. “Focus on improving delivery of subsidies and production and distribution bottlenecks in perishable items like fruits, vegetables, meat, milk and poultry will help to reduce wastage,” Vikram Sehgal of PHD Chamber said.