Rural development is the focus of India’s 2025-26 agriculture budget after Agriculture and Farmers Welfare amassed 40% of the departmental budget. 

The total national budget of 50.65 trillion rupees ($582.5 billion) focused mainly on infrastructure development and agriculture. 

On February 17, 2025, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi noted that annual agriculture & allied budget has increased 12%.

The allocation for agriculture & allied sectors is 1.71 trillion rupees ($19.7 billion), according to the government’s site. 

Together with the separate rural development, food, and fertilizer budgets, however, all affiliated agriculture budget is over 6 trillion rupees ($69 billion).  

Farmers Welfare

Internally, the Department of Agriculture’s allocation in the 2025-26 year is 378.38 billion rupees ($4.4 billion). 

Inside it is the Farmers Welfare office, which has secured 14.7 billion rupees ($169.2 million) or 40% of this departmental amount.

Besides, the union budget has also offered paddy farmers under the Samruddha Krushak Yojana scheme 60 billion rupees ($690 million). 

The paddy farming scheme will further help rice farmers sell their crop at a guaranteed 3,100 rupees ($35.65) a quintal (100 kg). 

For struggling agriculturalists, the budget has provided 2.02 billion rupees ($23.2 million) via the CM-Kisan program. 

Unlike other loan disbursement systems, the CM-Kisan scheme is available to farmers who cannot access other funding.

Irrigation

The water resources department in its part has edged other agricultural sectors with a 14.895 billion-rupee ($171.3 million) allocation. 

This means that vital irrigation in a country where 50% of agricultural water comes from groundwater will benefit greatly.

Ideally,  the government aims to raise the irrigation target by 1.5 million hectares per year at pace with current kharif area expansion. There is also a 2025-26 master plan where some 277,000 hectares will be put under a special irrigation plan. 

Additionally, the flood management department has secured 3.86 billion rupees ($44.4 million) for rehabilitation and disaster control.

It thus seems like India has raised the bar for farmers welfare and irrigation in its 2025-26 budget. Below are highlights of how farmers and allied have fared in spending in recent budgets.

Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Spending Statistics 

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare & allied usually receive 13% of India’s total budget. Internally, farmers welfare and other subsidy programs such as loans make up 73% of the agricultural budget each year. The total 2024-25 budget for the Ministry of Agriculture, including the outlays for Farmers Welfare department, totaled 1.37 trillion rupees ($15.8 billion), a 12% increase y-o-y.  Other departments such as that of agricultural research usually receive a different budgetary allocation.

According to the government’s press bureau (PIB), the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare normally spends a little less than yearly estimates.  As such, below is PIB’s spending data for between 2019 and 2023:

Financial Year	Allocation	Actual Expenditure
2019-20	1.09 trillion rupees ($12.5 billion)	1.02 trillion rupees ($11.7 billion)
2020-21	1.24 trillion rupees ($14.3 billion)	1.16 trillion rupees ($13.3 billion)
2021-22	1.26 trillion rupees ($14.5 billion)	1.23 trillion rupees ($14.1 billion)
2022-23	1.18 trillion rupees ($13.6 billion)	1.1 trillion rupees ($12.7 billion)