Union Budget 2026: Tech ‘vistaar’ for farmers to boost income and take better decisions

Khasi tribal farmers clean harvested paddy in a field along the Assam Meghalaya border, on the outskirts of Guwahati

As part of a broad roadmap to achieve one of its duties (kartavya), govt on Sunday emphasised “targeted efforts” to increase farmers’ income through “productivity enhancement and entrepreneurship”, using cutting-edge technology, including multilingual AI tools, and proposed the launch of Bharat-VISTAAR (Virtually Integrated System to Access Agricultural Resources). The move will help farmers make better farm-level decisions with data-driven, customised digital advisories.Govt has also put focus on high-value agriculture crops such as coconut, sandalwood, cocoa and cashew in the coastal areas, agar trees in the North-East and nuts such as almonds, walnuts and pine nuts in hilly regions, and placed special attention on fisheries and livestock, as part of a big push for the farm and allied sectors.Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Bharat-VISTAAR, the AI tool that will integrate AgriStack portals and the ICAR package on agricultural practices with AI systems, “will enhance farm productivity, enable better decisions for farmers and reduce risk by providing customised advisory support.”For the fisheries sector, she proposed to undertake initiatives for the integrated development of 500 reservoirs and ‘Amrit Sarovars’ (ponds), 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. For the animal husbandry sector, she proposed a credit-linked subsidy programme, scale-up and modernisation of livestock enterprises, enhanced creation of livestock, dairy and poultry-focused integrated-value chains, and a boost to the creation of livestock farmer producers organisations.Stating that livestock contributes close to 16% of farm incomes, Sitharaman proposed to roll out a loan-linked capital subsidy support scheme for the establishment of veterinary and private colleges, veterinary hospitals, diagnostic laboratories and breeding facilities in the private sector. The scheme will help scale up the availability of veterinary professionals by over 20,000. “Collaboration between Indian and foreign institutions will also be facilitated.”