Budget 2018: Focus shifts to higher income for Indian farmers

Farmers are exposed to risks from the point they start working on a new crop to the unpredictability of weather about 55% of agriculture is still dependent on rains

Indian politicians cutting across their ideological predilections are prone to making promises which are not easily redeemable. They make commitments without the backing of expert studies. An example of this is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bold announcement, repeated time and again by his ministerial and party colleagues, that the income of Indian farmers will be doubled between 2015-16 and 2022-23.

The taxonomy of risks in agriculture is long. Farmers are exposed to risks from the point they start working on a new crop to the unpredictability of weather — about 55 per cent of agriculture in the country is still dependent