CHANDIGARH: While the Union Budget positioned agriculture as the “first engine of growth” to boost the sector, farmers and agricultural experts have expressed disappointment, arguing that the budget offers little for agriculture and favours corporate interests.Leading agricultural expert Davinder Sharma criticized the budget, recalling that when Arun Jaitley presented his first budget in 2014, he had listed farmers’ income as one of his top five priorities. “Now, in 2025, farmers’ income is at the bottom of the priority list. We had hoped that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would continue from where Jaitley left off and take meaningful steps for agriculture. While she has labelled agriculture as the first engine of growth, in reality, it remains neglected,” he said.Sharma pointed out that the total budget allocation for agriculture has increased from Rs 1.52 lakh crore last year to Rs 1.71 lakh crore this year, but this amount is still significantly lower than the Rs 2.74 lakh crore allocated for pensions and salaries of central government employees. “For a country where 50 per cent of the population depends on agriculture, this 3.38 per cent share of the total budget is alarmingly low. In contrast, the budget for government employees is much higher. Does this not show how agriculture is being deliberately ignored?” he questioned.Dismissing many of the budget’s agricultural initiatives as mere cosmetic changes, Sharma argued that significant investments were needed to truly make agriculture an engine of growth. “The government has announced a national mission on pulses, but such a mission was unnecessary as they have already ensured that imports are restricted. Similarly, creating a Makhan Board is just a token measure. What agriculture truly needs is a substantial budget increase. If we want to make real progress, we should allocate an additional ₹5 lakh crore every year for five years, considering that 700 million people depend on agriculture,” he added.He also highlighted the absence of key farmer-centric measures. “The finance minister did not mention the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops or the Kisan Nidhi Scheme in the budget. These are the measures that would have directly benefited farmers, yet they were ignored,” he added.
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