Karnataka Budget: New initiatives for eco-friendly farming, efficient use of water, embrace AI tech

The State Budget featured a few schemes to support eco-friendly agricultural practices, along with measures to strengthen initiatives to back cultivation of millets in Karnataka.

The budet has proposed ‘Vasudhamruta’ programme to promote eco-friendly and sustainable agricultural practices by enhancing organic carbon content of soil, along with its physical, chemical, and biological properties. The programme will be implemented over the next three years in Karnataka.

The ‘Sasya Sanjeevini’ scheme has been announced to identify pests and diseases at the early stage, and to provide timely recommendations to farmers on control measures, such as use of eco-friendly bio-control agents and bio-pesticides, along with other safer control measures. This scheme too will be implemented over the next three years.

With respect to millets, the budget has proposed to strengthen the ‘Millet Hub’, which is being established to promote millets and organic products in Karnataka. The hub, which had been announced in the previous budget, will now be developed into a self-sustaining institution. It will function as a single-window system to provide technical assistance, processing facilities, quality certification, and market linkages under one roof to farmers, rural youth, and agri-entrepreneurs.

‘Chief Minister’s Krishi Vistara’ scheme has been announced to create stable and additional sources of income for farmers by comprehensively strengthening post-harvest activities, such as processing, value addition, value chain development, recycling of agricultural waste, and setting up market linkages over the next three years with an outlay of ₹100 crore.

The Agriculture Department’s ‘Raitha Kare Kendra’ (Farmer Call Centre) is set to be upgraded using AI technology to provide farmers with quick access to reliable information on weather, markets, agricultural technology, and departmental updates under one roof.

In a bid to reduce excess use of water in paddy cultivation, the budget has proposed to promote ‘Alternate Wetting and Drying’ (AWD) method of irrigation to increase water use efficiency. This would also help in strengthening the State’s efforts with respect to climate change adaptation and mitigation to make agriculture sustainable and eco-friendly.

‘Raita Malls’ has been proposed to be set up by the State-run MSIL on a pilot basis in all taluks of Kolar district to provide quality seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, and agricultural implements to farmers under one roof.

To fight the menace of spurious farm inputs, the government will constitute a State-level advisory committee to recommend measures to fight the supply of spurious, unsafe, or defective seeds and pesticides to farmers, and to curb the sale of agricultural inputs at prices exceeding market rates.