Productivity enhancements are a factor of in situ and post-harvest interventions states the Economic Survey 2025-26 tabled in Parliament today by the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. Several key initiatives to achieve this have been highlighted in the Economic Survey 2025-26.

QUALITY SEEDS:

The Sub-Mission on Seeds and Planting Materials (SMSP), launched in 2014–15, aims to ensure farmers have access to high-quality seeds by promoting seed production, processing, storage, and certification nationwide. Under this initiative, 6.85 lakh Seed Villages were created, 1649.26 lakh quintals of quality seeds were produced, and 2.85 crore farmers benefited. A National Mission on High-Yielding Seeds has been announced in the Union Budget 2025-26, aimed at strengthening the research ecosystem, targeting the development and propagation of climate-resilient high-yielding varieties, and improving the commercial availability of more than 100 new seed varieties.

IRRIGATION AND WATER-USE EFFICIENCY:

Access to assured water through irrigation is a key driver of agricultural productivity. Effective irrigation systems provide farmers with the certainty of water when needed, improve nutrient uptake, make agriculture more resilient to the vagaries of nature, facilitate crop diversification, and enable multiple cropping.

The government promotes micro-irrigation by providing 55 per cent financial assistance to small and marginal farmers and 45 per cent to other farmers for the installation of Drip and Sprinkler systems under the PDMC program. As a result, the gross irrigated area as a share of the gross cropped area has increased from 41.7 per cent in 2001-02 to 55.8 per cent in 2022-23.

SOIL HEALTH AND BALANCED NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT:

Declining soil health, particularly a decline in soil organic carbon, poses a major challenge to agricultural productivity in India. The Government has taken steps to address this through the Soil Health Management (SHM) and Soil Health Card (SHC) schemes under the National Project on Management of Soil Health & Fertility, promoting integrated nutrient management by combining chemical fertilisers with organic manures and bio-fertilisers. Over 25.55 crore cards have been issued (as of 14 November 2025).

India has already undertaken important steps to improve fertiliser management. Nutrient based pricing, neem-coating of urea, Aadhaar-linked point-of-sale verification, and the Integrated Fertiliser Management System have improved transparency, logistics and control over physical flows.

MECHANISATION AND COLLECTIVE ACCESS:

The Government has made significant efforts to promote farm mechanisation through the Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanisation (SMAM), providing assistance to State Governments for training and demonstration of agricultural machinery, establishing Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs), and supporting farmers in procuring farm equipment. Between 2014-15 and 2025-26, a total of 25,689 CHCs have been established under the scheme, including 558 CHCs set up during 2025-26 (as of 30 Oct, 2025).

INFRASTRUCTURE AND MARKETING SUPPORT:

Recognising the need to crowd in private investment for agricultural marketing, the Government has implemented the Agriculture Marketing Infrastructure (AMI) sub-scheme under the Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) since 2014.

As of 31 December 2025, 49,796 storage projects have been sanctioned with ₹4,832.70 crore released, while 25,009 other marketing infrastructure projects received ₹2,193.16 crore in subsidy.

The Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) was launched with a financing facility of ₹1 lakh crore (FY 21 to FY 26, support extending to FY33), offering medium-term debt for post-harvest management and community farming projects with interest subvention and credit guarantees.

To improve price discovery and competitive access to buyers, the Government launched e-NAM in April 2016 as a pan-India virtual market platform. By 31 December 2025, e-NAM registered around 1.79 crore farmers, 2.72 lakh crore traders, and 4,698 FPOs, covering 1,522 mandis across 23 states and 4 UTs. To strengthen collective marketing, the Government launched a new FPO scheme in 2020 with a budget of ₹6,860 crore through 2027-28, aiming to form 10,000 FPOs. By 31 December 2025, 10,000 FPOs were registered.

PRICE AND INCOME SUPPORT:

Price and Income support policies are essential because farm incomes remain unstable due to weather shocks, market volatility, and rising input costs. Small and marginal farmers have limited resilience and weak bargaining power. Assured income and fair prices provide basic stability, encourage productive investment, and help sustain viable agricultural livelihoods. To ensure remunerative prices for farmers, the government announces Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for 22 mandated crops. The Union Budget for 2018-19 announced the predetermined principle of keeping the MSP at 1.5 times the cost of production.

The government has announced the increase in MSP for all mandated Kharif and Rabi crops for the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2025-26 and for the Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) 2026-27, respectively.

Furthermore, income support through assured prices and schemes, such as the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), has further contributed to strengthening farm incomes, sustaining investments and growth in the agricultural sector. Since its inception, under PM-KISAN, more than ₹4.09 lakh crore has been released to more than 11 crore eligible farmers in 21 instalments.

AGRICULTURAL CREDIT:

Agricultural credit flows from both formal sources, such as commercial banks, Regional rural banks (RRBs), cooperatives, small finance banks, and Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), and informal sources, including moneylenders, traders, and personal networks. Key frameworks, such as the Lead Bank Scheme and Priority Sector Lending, aim to ensure timely and targeted credit delivery to priority farm households and the rural economy.

Ground Level Credit (GLC) disbursement stood at ₹28.69 lakh crore, which includes ₹15.93 lakh crore under short term loans and ₹12.77 lakh crore under term loans, surpassing the ₹27.5 lakh crore target in FY 25. The KCC scheme, which had 7.72 crore operative accounts with outstanding balances of ₹10.20 lakh crore as of 31st March 2025, was further strengthened by the Modified Interest Subvention Scheme (MISS), which offered loans at a subsidised interest rate of 7 per cent with a 3 per cent prompt repayment incentive. Between FY15 and FY26, a total of ₹ 1.77 lakh crore was disbursed as a subsidy under MISS.

NB/RC/RK