The Union Budget 2026-27, presented by Hon’ble Finance Minister Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman on 1^st February 2026, has reinforced the Government’s renewed focus on modernising agriculture and allied sectors while enhancing farm incomes and rural livelihoods. Building on the vision of Viksit Bharat @ 2047, the Budget has outlined a mix of traditional support and forward-looking reforms — from targeted allocations and crop diversification to technology-driven solutions such as the multilingual Bharat Vistar AI platform.

• High Value Agriculture: To diversify farm outputs, increase productivity, enhance farmers’ incomes, and create new employment opportunities, the Government will support high value crops such as coconut, sandalwood, cocoa and cashew in coastal areas. Agar trees in North East and nuts such as, almonds, walnuts and pine nuts in the hilly regions will also be supported.
• Coconut Promotion Scheme: India is the world’s largest producer of coconuts. About 30 million people, including nearly 10 million farmers, depend on coconuts for their livelihood. To further enhance competitiveness in coconut production, the Budget has proposed a Coconut Promotion Scheme to increase production and enhance productivity through various interventions, including replacing old and non-productive trees with new saplings/plants/varieties in major coconut growing States.
• A dedicated programme is proposed for Indian cashew and cocoa to make India self-reliant in raw cashew and cocoa production and processing, enhance export competitiveness and transform Indian Cashew and Indian Cocoa into premium global brands by 2030.
• Sandalwood is closely linked to India’s social and cultural heritage. The Union Government will partner with States to promote focused cultivation and post-harvest processing to restore the glory of the Indian Sandalwood ecosystem.
• Bharat-VISTAAR (Virtually Integrated System to Access Agricultural Resources): The Union Budget has announced launching Bharat-VISTAAR — a multilingual AI tool that shall integrate the AgriStack portals and the ICAR package on agricultural practices with AI systems. This will enhance farm productivity, enable better decisions for farmers and reduce risk by providing customised advisory support.
• SHE-Marts for Rural Women-led Enterprises: Building on the success of the Lakhpati Didi Programme, the Government has proposed to help women take the next step from credit-led livelihoods to being owners of enterprises. Self-Help Entrepreneur (SHE) Marts will be set up as community-owned retail outlets within the cluster level federations through enhanced and innovative financing instruments.
• Dedicated Programme for Horticulture: To rejuvenate old, low-yielding orchards and expand high-density cultivation of walnuts, almonds and pine nuts, the Government will support a dedicated programme to enhance farmer incomes and in bringing value addition by engaging youth.
• Animal Husbandry: To provide quality employment opportunities in rural and peri-urban areas, Union Budget proposes to support the Animal Husbandry Sector in entrepreneurship development through: (a) a Credit-Linked Subsidy Programme (b) scaling-up and modernisation of livestock enterprises (c) enhance creation of livestock, dairy and poultry-focused integrated-value chains and (d) encourage creation of Livestock Farmer Producers Organisations.
• Fisheries: The Union Budget has also announced undertaking initiatives (i) for integrated development of 500 reservoirs and Amrit Sarovars (ii) strengthen the fisheries value chain in coastal areas and enable market linkages involving start-ups and women-led groups together with Fish Farmers Producer Organisations.