Karnataka Budget 2025-26: Agriculture sector recovers from slump to touch 4 per cent growth riding on good monsoon
The Hindu
Karnataka’s agriculture sector, which had slipped into a negative growth of –4.9% in 2023-24 after being hit by drought, has shown signs of recovery by registering a growth of 4% in 2024-25 following good rainfall. The sector’s growth has outpaced this year’s national agricultural growth rate of 3.8%, mainly owing to the good agricultural production in the 2024 kharif season.
Karnataka’s agriculture sector, which had slipped into a negative growth of –4.9% in 2023-24 after being hit by drought, has shown signs of recovery by registering a growth of 4% in 2024-25 following good rainfall. The sector’s growth has outpaced this year’s national agricultural growth rate of 3.8%, mainly owing to the good agricultural production in the 2024 kharif season.
Enthused by this, the State has now taken up an exercise of making agro-climatic zones more pragmatic by initiating the process of “re-delineation” of existing classification of climate zones in the State in the wake of recent natural calamities. An expert committee is being formed to look into it as the existing classification was fixed several years ago. The State 10 agro-climatic zones.
It has been decided to develop plots of integrated farming system as a model in each of the 10 agro-climatic zones.
The Budget has given emphasis on dryland farming as it has announced that a comprehensive rain-fed agriculture policy will be implemented to make it sustainable. About 64% of the cultivated area in the State is rain-fed and Karnataka stands next only to Rajasthan in terms of large tracts of drought-prone land.
In addition, the Budget has proposed to build 12,000 more farm ponds under the flagship Krishi Bhagya programme to provide irrigation at critical stages of crop development. A sum of ₹440 crore is being provided to 1.81 lakh farmers for adoption of micro irrigation system.
A scheme is being formulated under the public-private partnership model to promote horticulture tourism, floriculture, ornamental crops, and medicinal plants production in selected farms and nurseries under the Horticulture Department.
Coming to the rescue of areca farmers, the Budget has provided ₹62 crore for plant protection measures to control leaf spot disease that has put more than 2 lakh areca growers in Malnad in distress.
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