By -Dr. Janmejaya Panda Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Easwari School of Liberal Arts & Raghavendra Sujith Guda, Student Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SRM University- AP ( Amaravati)
The Union Budget of India for the year 2026-27, presented on the occasion of Magha Purnima, advances a strategic step towards agricultural resilience, mirroring the earth’s transition towards the warmth of Spring on the aforementioned day. The budget proposed an allocation of ₹ 1.63 crores for agriculture, which showed a 7 per cent increase over the revised estimate of 2025-26. The emphasis of the proposed allocation on food security, modern technology adoption and farmers’ welfare marks a definitive move away from the conventional short-term relief measures, and focuses on long-term resilience of agriculture. This focus on resilience is augmented by the complementary focus on rural livelihood development. Resilience may be conceptualised as the ability of the agricultural sector to cope with different issues or challenges. Therefore, a resilient agricultural system is capable enough to withstand shocks and stresses, adapt to them, and recover to the previous equilibrium or transit to a better development pathway. Agricultural resilience is multidimensional, encompassing ecological, economic, social and institutional resilience dimensions.
Agriculture persists as the country’s dominant sector in terms of employment generation, as it engages around 46.1 per cent of the country’s rural workforce. However, the sector’s contribution to GDP remains disproportionately low, highlighting structural productivity constraints. These constraints, rooted in institutional bottlenecks, confined resource access, and unequal resource distribution, have significantly contributed to the dominance of low-value crop monoculture, notwithstanding its squeezing demand and high environmental costs. The Union Budget has announced support to high-value crops, including coconut, sandalwood, cocoa, and cashew nut in coastal regions, agarwood in the North East region, and nuts in other targeted regions. The proposed support, if implemented effectively, is expected to offer the farmers enhanced income stability, ultimately fostering the economic resilience of the sector. This announcement further signals a strategic shift away from the water-intensive mono-cropping to enhanced diversification of crops, which is likely to contribute to the sector’s ability to withstand climatic shocks and ecological stresses.
The budget adds further provisions to foster raw material production and processing of cashew and cocoa, and improve post-harvest processing of sandalwood, which is likely to strengthen the value chains of respective crops, adding further to the economic resilience of agriculture. Building economic resilience is likely to get a boost from the announced enhancement of fisheries value chains through improved market linkage and increased support for start-ups. The proposed modernization and scaling up of integrated livestock value chains may contribute further. The union government’s plan to support animal husbandry-based credit-linked subsidy schemes is expected to improve resource access, ultimately fostering the social and institutional resilience of Indian agriculture. The mentioned provision of engaging youth in agricultural enterprises and empowering women to build enterprises is likely to add to the social and institutional resilience of the sector.
The idea of ‘Bharat Vistaar’ (Bharat Virtual Integrated System to Access Agricultural System) lies at the core of the tabled budget, proposing a significant push for tech-driven agriculture. Bharat Vistaar is a multilingual AI-powered platform that fuses AgriStack portals with the practice packages of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). This fusion is anticipated to address farmers’ lower access to information and, therefore, fortify informed decision-making against risks induced by climate change and other stressors. This platform further targets to enhance the smallholders’ access to precision farming, which may add further to the ecological resilience of the sector.
While the budget presents an ambitious vision for building long-term agricultural resilience, a closer examination reveals critical omissions, which pose a risk of diluting the proposed impacts and limiting their potential to fully address the vulnerabilities. First, despite extensive emphasis on high-value agriculture, the budget extends restricted support for post-harvest infrastructure. The foodgrain-oriented domestic market, in the absence of appropriate export logistic support, may exacerbate the income volatility of farmers, instead of moderating it. Second, the priority on the AI-powered platform may fall short of delivering the intended results without improving digital literacy and grievance redressal platforms. Third, the ambitious targets require clear timelines and a structured evaluation framework, which are overlooked by the budget. Finally, the budget lacks clarity regarding the transitions to high-value crops in targeted regions where they deem infeasible.
Overall, the Union Budget 2026-27 sets ambitious agricultural goals and builds a strong narrative of agricultural resilience. However, there are certain gaps, which, although do not negate the budget’s long-term vision, highlight the necessity for complementary reforms. Integrating these reforms is anticipated to address key concerns and significantly enhance the momentum in reorienting agriculture surrounding a resilience-based framework.
