Budget 2021-22 wishlist: Here are the key challenges in agriculture sector

Key challenges

The agri value chain is disrupted by Covid. Ensuring support for storage and distribution can help. 

Agri commodities see a huge fluctuation in prices during peak season.   

There are no provisions for effective monitoring and support for farmers to sell outside the APMC.  

Every year there is substantial crop loss due to erratic climatic events.

Industry ask

The share of India in the global export of food co-mmodities is less than 1%. A package to boost exports from farmer organisations and small enterprises can be a good start 

Boosting farmer income has been one of the key goals. A package supporting farmers to convert to organic farming or supporting SMEs in developing organic processed product can help increase the share of organic farming in India 

After the roll-out of the AMPC reforms there are concerns among stakeholders on how things will shape up. A dedicated agency platform can be developed for supporting all interested stakeholders and form an ecosystem to monitor the transaction, address grievances

India is spending less than 1% of agri GDP in R&D. We need to boost the R&D structure to develop high yielding varieties.

There should be provisioning for an agri innovation fund which supports ag tech solutions and digitalisation.

To reduce the logistics cost, EVs can provide an effective solution. The EV costs are 40-50% lower and can suit small production volumes of marginal farmers. However, there needs to be investment in creation of a support ecosystem for ensuring seamless supply of batteries, charging stations and service providers acting as nodes