The State Budget presented by H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday focusses on schemes pertaining to agriculture and allied sectors with a total outlay of ₹46,853 crore, and the thrust is on addressing the burning issues of marketing and drought-proofing.

Other issues such as secondary and tertiary farming have also been touched upon. These have come amid prediction of a negative growth rate of 4.5% in the farm sector owing to drought.

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With crash in price of crops becoming a regular phenomenon, the budget has proposed to introduce Raitha Kanaja scheme that involves a revolving fund of ₹510 crore for providing minimum support price to 12 crops. The highlight of the scheme is that it will have a permanent procurement centre at every agricultural produce marketing committee yard so that farmers can make use of the facility as and when the price crashes.

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Similarly, for perishable produce such as onion, potato and tomato, whose price is volatile, the budget has introduced “price deficiency payment” scheme. Under this, a base price would be declared, and farmers would get the differential amount between the base price and their actual selling price if there is a drop in the price.

Farmers have also been allowed to store their produce in government warehouses for free up to eight months at times of price crash.

Minor millets

The budget promises remunerative price for six prominent minor millets. Provision is being made for their sales through Hopcoms and KMF’s Nandini outlets. A new scheme called Raitha Siri has been introduced to encourage cultivation of minor millets by providing an incentive of ₹10,000 per hectare through direct transfer to bank accounts.

With respect to drought-proofing, the budget has allocated ₹100 crore under Sujala-III watershed programme to take up drought-proof watershed activities on 9 lakh hectares spread over 100 drought-hit taluks through the convergence of programmes, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme.

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In Malnad and coastal regions, where paddy is cultivated mostly by impounding rainwater, the budget proposes to provide an incentive of ₹ 7,500 an hectare as that would help increase groundwater level.

Following complaints about the present crop insurance scheme not being efficient, the budget has proposed to consider floating its own crop insurance scheme.

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In addition to these scheme, the flagship programmes of zero budget natural farming (₹40 crore), organic farming (₹35 crore), Israel model micro-irrigation system (₹145 crore) and Krishi Bhagya scheme of farm ponds (₹250 crore) have been continued.

While a special package of ₹150 crore has been announced for pomegranate and grape growers in distress, mango processing units are to be set up in Ramanagaram and Dharwad while tomato-processing unit would be set up in Kolar. Similarly, a scheme has been proposed to be taken up with private partnership for effective post-harvest management of horticultural produce, including market-related activities, value addition, processing, and building market intelligence.