What Bharat wants from the budget on 1 February

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Indian agriculture has shown remarkable resilience in the face of growing climate risks. The sector, which employs about 46% of the workforce, has seen overall production rise but also a sharp slide in crop prices.

Mint lists five areas where the budget could reinvigorate the rural sector. Helped by ample rains last year, food production during the kharif crop season rose 2.3% to 173 million tonnes in 2025-26. However, crop prices have been on a decline.

In fact, food prices have seen a deflationary trend since June last year until December when retail prices were 2.7% lower year-on-year. While this helped lower overall inflation for consumers, farmers have suffered. Most crop prices were lower than the government's minimum support prices (MSP), including for non-food crops like cotton and non-MSP crops like potato and onion where prices are lower by 22-28% compared to last year.

Thus, budgetary allocation for price support schemes is critical to lift farm incomes and rural demand. India is a top producer globally in several crops like rice, wheat and fruit and vegetables. However, crop yields continue to lag global averages by a wide margin.

This is true for crops like cotton and oilseeds as well. One way to raise productivity is by improving soil health. Indian soils are low in organic carbon content, which ranges between 0.3% and 0.6%, far lower than the desired levels of 1-1.5%.

India launched a soil health card scheme back in 2015, but it did not help much to improve the deteriorating soil health. Through programmes like the soil health scheme, and the national mission on natural farming, the budget can help remedy the situation. This will also improve the quality of food.