Thrust on agri sector as Haryana CM unveils slew offarmer-friendly steps

The agriculture sector in Haryana appears poised to benefit as chief minister Nayab Singh Saini, who also holds the finance portfolio, unveiled a slew of farmer-friendly steps in what was please-all peasants budgetary proposals for the 2025-26 fiscal presented in the assembly on Monday.

With the cultivators becoming restive over declining farm incomes, shrinking yields and soaring input costs, agriculture took centre stage in Saini’s 63-page budget document that outlined 38 “important measures” specially for the farming community.

That agriculture sector was set to gain had become apparent when Saini was capping- off the lengthy debate on the governor’s address in the assembly last week. Saini had declared that farmers’ welfare remained the top priority of the BJP government. After Saini set the tone, agriculture minister Shayam Singh Rana had hinted at major announcement in the budget.

“Agriculture and allied activities are the backbone of our small state’s economy and will continue to be so,” Saini said, bringing the sector into the spotlight minutes after rising to present his maiden budget.

“Reducing farmers’ costs, improving crop yields...providing quality seeds...promoting natural and organic farming and consistently increasing farmers’ income will remain the top priorities of our government this year, just as they have been for the past decade.”

Saini said that even as government provides farmers quality seeds, fertilisers and pesticides at affordable rates, “some black sheep in our society” try to exploit farmers by selling “fake seeds and pesticides”.

And to overcome this and protect the farmers, government will introduce a Bill in this session.

While setting a target of bringing under natural farming 1 lakh acre land (up from previous 25,000-acre target), Saini said farmers opting for natural farming on one acre will now be eligible for ₹30,000 subsidy to buy indigenous cows. Earlier, farmers practising natural farming on 2-acre were eligible.

Under the “Mera Pani Meri Virasat Yojana”, farmers giving up paddy cultivation will get ₹8,000 per acre, up from ₹7,000 per acre. Also, the farmers opting for direct seeded rice cultivation (DRS) that requires 20% to 30% less water, the incentive has been hiked from ₹4,000 per acre to ₹4,500 per acre.

The current subsidy for farmers managing paddy straw has also been increased from ₹1,000 per acre to ₹1,200 per acre.

Chief minister proposed to establish an ultra-modern, multi-storey and air-conditioned flower market in Gurugram for the purchase and sale of flowers and announced to build a sub-yard by the market committee in village Manethi of Rewari district.

Currently, farmer producer organisations (FPOs) registered as a company get the benefit of government schemes, while those registered as cooperative societies are deprived of these benefits. To bridge this gap, government will soon introduce a new Horticulture Policy that will encourage value addition, storage, technology, marketing, natural and organic farming, etc through both types of FPOs

To increase the income of livestock farmers, the government will launch a new scheme in the coming year to provide high-genetic breeds of goats and sheep, such as Beetal, Sirohi, Munjal, etc, which are not found in Haryana.

The chief minister announced that a new horticulture project will be launched in all 22 districts through 400 horticulture clusters and with the assistance of the Japan government in next nine years at a cost of ₹ 2,738 crore while for 2025-26 fiscal ₹138 crore have been set aside.

“To ensure the rational use of fertilisers, as per the suggestions of farmers, I propose to link their sale to the Meri Fasal Mera Byora portal. This will also help in promoting Nano urea and Nano DAP,” Saini said.