India has been an agriculture-based country and a sizable population is still dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. Since this sector influences the lives of the entire population, several efforts have been made since independence to evolve appropriate agricultural policies for producers’ and consumers’ welfare.

According to the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data, the average monthly income of an agricultural household has increased to Rs 10,218 in 2018-19 from Rs 6,426 in 2012-13.

The Union Government constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee to examine issues relating to doubling of farmers’ income and recommend a strategy to achieve doubling of farmers’ income in real terms.

The Committee submitted its Report to the Government in September 2018 containing the strategy for doubling of farmers’ income through various policies, reforms & programmes. The Committee Report having 14 Volumes are available on the website of the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare https://agricoop.nic.in/en/Doubling#gsc.tab=0).

The Doubling Farmers’ Income (DFI ) strategy, as recommended by the Committee and accepted by the Government, include following seven sources of income growth:

1. Improvement in crop productivity
2. Improvement in livestock productivity
3. Resource use efficiency or savings in the cost of production
4. Increase in the cropping intensity
5. Diversification towards high value crops
6. Improvement in real prices received by farmers; and
7. Shift from farm to non-farm occupations

The Doubling Farmers’ Income (DFI ) strategy, as recommended by the Committee and accepted by the Government, include following seven sources of income growth:

1. Increasing total output across the agricultural sub-sectors through realising higher productivity
2. Rationalizing/reducing the cost of production
3. Ensuring remunerative prices in the agricultural produce
4. Effective risk management
5. Adoption of sustainable technologies

The Government has adopted several developmental programmes, schemes, reforms and policies that focus on higher incomes for the farmers such as:

1. Enhanced Budget Allocation: The budget allocation of Ministry of Agriculture (including DARE) and Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying has increased more than four times from Rs. 30,223.88 crore in 2013-4 to Rs. 1,31,612.41 crore in 2023-24.
2. Income support through PM KISAN: Launched in 2019, Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) aims to provide a payment of Rs. 6,000/- per year in three equal instalments to the farmers families.
3. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY): Launched in 2016, PMFBY provides insurance cover for all stages of the crop cycle including post-harvest risks in specified instances, with low premium contribution by farmers.
4. Institutional Credit for Agriculture Sector: A special drive has been undertaken since February 2020 to provide concessional institutional credit with focus on covering all PM-KISAN beneficiaries through Kisan Credit Cards (KCC).
5. Fixing of Minimum Support Price (MSP) at one-and-a half times the cost of production: Government has increased the MSP for all mandated Kharif, Rabi and other commercial crops with a return of at least 50 per cent over all India weighted average cost of production from 2018-19.
6. Promotion of organic farming in the country: (i) Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) was initiated in 2015-16 to promote organic farming in the country. (ii) In addition, Under Namami Gange Programme, 1,23,620 hectare area covered and under natural farming 4.09 lakh hectare area covered. (iii) Government also proposes to promote sustainable natural farming systems through the scheme Bhartiya Prakratik Krishi Padhati (BPKP) which aims at cutting down cost of cultivation, enhancing farmer’s income and ensuring resource conservation and, safe and healthy soils, environment and food. (iv) Mission Organic Value Chain Development in North East Region (MOVCDNER) has been launched. 379 Farmer Producer Companies have been formed comprising of 189039 farmers and covering 172966 hectares area.
7. Per Drop More Crop: Launched in 2015-16, PDMC aims to increase water use efficiency, reducing cost of inputs and increasing productivity at the farm level through Micro Irrigation technologies i.e. drip and sprinkler irrigation systems.
8. Micro Irrigation Fund: A Micro Irrigation Fund with an initial corpus Rs. 5,000 crore has been created with NABARD.
9. Promotion of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs): To bring scales of economy to agricultural operations a new Central Sector Scheme for Formation & Promotion of new 10,000 FPOs was launched in February 2020 with budget outlay of Rs. 6,865 crore till 2027-28.
10. National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM): Launched in 2020 as part of the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, NBHM aims to increase productivity of crops through pollination and increase in honey production as an additional source of income.
11. Agricultural Mechanization: Agricultural mechanization is extremely vital to modernize agriculture and reduce drudgery of farming operations. Custom hiring centers, high-tech hubs and village-level farm machinery banks have been established to provide machines and equipments to farmers on subsidy basis.
12. Providing Soil Health Cards to Farmers: Soil Health Card Scheme was introduced in the year 2014-15 to optimize usage of nutrients.
13. Setting up of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) Extension Platform: Launched in April 2016, this pan-India electronic trading portal provides a unified national market for agricultural commodities.
14. Launch of the National Mission for Edible Oils and Oil Palm (NMEO): Sanctioned with a total outlay of Rs. 11,040 crore, the major focus of the Mission is to provide Viability Prices of fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) to the farmers linked with assured procurement by industry with a simpler price fixing formula. The Central Government will compensate farmers through a viability gap payment if price paid by industry is below the viability price up to October, 2037.
15. Agri Infrastructure Fund (AIF): Since its inception in the year 2020, various agriculture infrastructures viz., warehouses, primary processing units, custom hiring centres, sorting & grading units, cold store projects, assaying units and other kinds of post-harvest management projects and community farming assets, have been created with the help of the scheme.
16. Improvement in farm produce logistics, introduction of Kisan Rail: The Ministry of Railways has launched Kisan Rail to exclusively cater to movement of perishable agrihorti commodities. First Kisan Rail was started in July 2020.
17. MIDH – Cluster Development Programme: CDP is designed to leverage geographical specialisation of horticulture clusters and promote integrated and market-led development of pre-production, production, post-harvest, logistics, branding, and marketing activities.
18. Creation of a Start-up Eco system in Agriculture and Allied Sector: The Government provides grants-in-aid support to start-ups selected by different knowledge partners and agribusiness incubators of the Union Ministry of Agriculture.
19. Achievement in Export of Agri and Allied Agri-Commodities: As compared to the year 2020-21, the Agri and allied export has increased from 41.86 billion USD in 2020-21 to 50.24 billion USD in 2021-22 i.e. an increase of 19.99%.