BUDGET EXPECTATIONS: AGRITECH SECTOR

24 Jan 2023 , 03:14 PM

Agriculture is the second largest contributor to India’s economy and is always the key spotlight in the Union Budget. 2022 was a good year for the Agritech sector with strong investments and greater adoption of technologies. But, the agriculture sector in India is yet to accommodate technology to its full potential. To support this growth momentum, the government needs to enable more technological advancement in the sector with an acute focus on the development of a complete agritech ecosystem. We hope that in the upcoming budget, the government allocates funds, especially for the improvement of agriculture infrastructure which has a much larger multiplier effect on the economy in the long run.

Government should devise more schemes to ensure greater application of technology to increase agricultural yield, efficient utilization of resources, reduction in input cost, growth in agricultural wages, remunerative and stable prices, and also give proper forward and backward linkages to the farmers. Not only this, the government should also subsidize crop insurance further and provide the farmers with additional subsidies to buy drones and other accessories.

There is no doubt that the government is playing a crucial role in the development of the agriculture sector. The Agritech sector can be a game changer for the economy with the government’s impetus push in terms of R&D, tax benefits, automation, mechanization of farms, and supportive inputs for start-ups to make agriculture a robust, tech-led sector.