AP unveils ‘Smart and Precision’ policies for farmers in Agri Budget-2025-26

The minister said, “As part of formulating the agricultural policies, we would introduce some innovative techniques in the agriculture sector, like the introduction of a farmer registry, an e-Panta to know about cropped area of each actual cultivator, the APSS App that uses artificial intelligence and machine-learning technology to identify pets and diseases, at various stages, to enable farmers seek advisory services to deal with them.

He said the government had decided to enact the ’AP New Tenancy Act 2024’ to issue tenant entitlement cards to all eligible tenants, helping them avail hassle-free crop loans and benefits of other welfare schemes. These are in addition to the implementation of Vaddi Leni Runalu, Annadathah Sukhibhava --PM KISAN’ scheme and Crop Insurance Scheme.

As for horticulture, as part of the Swarna Andhra- 2047, an action plan has been prepared to promote 11 horticultural crops with the highest gross value addition in cluster mode. Crop-wise clusters have been selected for achieving an annual growth rate of more than 15 per cent year-on-year.

Atchannaidu said the Centre sanctioned a banana cluster for Anantapur district. Cluster proposals were prepared for other crops like mango in Chittoor, Annamayya and Tirupati; cashew cluster in Srikakulam, ASR and Manyam; coconut cluster in Srikakulam, East Godavari and Konaseema; oil palm, cocoa clusters in Eluru and East Godavari and chillies cluster in Prakasam and Guntur districts.

The minister said the fisheries and aqua sector has been identified as a growth engine to achieve the goals set in the Swarna Andhra-2047 initiative. AP topped the country’s marine fishery product exports with an input of items worth Rs 19,420 crore.

The state government, he said, is committed to enhance the marine fishing ban relief to Rs 20,000 from Rs 10,000 per family for all eligible marine fishermen. Electricity would be supplied to aquaculture farmers at the rate of Rs 1.50/unit to reduce the cost of production. Some 68,134 aqua service connections are to get the benefit in both aqua zones and non-aqua zones.

Break-up: Out of the total outlay for agriculture and allied sectors in the Rs 48,341.14 crore budget, the break-up of the figures is as follows: agriculture Rs 12,401.58 crore; horticulture Rs 930.88 crore; sericulture Rs 96.22cr; agriculture marketing Rs 315.32cr; cooperation department Rs 239.85cr; animal husbandry Rs 1,112.07cr; fisheries department Rs 540.189cr; the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University Rs 507.01cr; the YSR Horticulture University Rs 98.21cr; the Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University Rs 154.57cr; the AP Fisheries University Rs 38cr; the Uchitha Vyavasaya Vidyut Pathakam Rs 12,773.25cr; MGNREGS Rs 6,028.87cr; the NTR Jala Siri Rs 50cr and water resources department Rs 12,903.41cr.