Vijayawada: Agriculture minister K Atchannaidu presented the agriculture and its allied sectors’ annual budget with an outlay of Rs 48,341.14 crore for the financial year 2025-26 in Legislative Assembly on Friday.

Minister for municipal administration and urban development P Narayana read out the agriculture budget in Legislative Council.

Presenting the agriculture budget, Atchannaidu said Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is determined to significantly reduce the cost of cultivation by using modern technology and focus on cultivation of remunerative crops and encourage cultivation of export-oriented fine paddy varieties. He alleged that the previous government has completely neglected the agriculture and farmers.

He said the coalition government announced financial assistance of Rs 14,000 per annum (including Rs 6,000 through Central sector PM Kisan scheme) to the landowners under ‘Annadata Sukhibhava PM Kisan’ scheme as one of the Super Six programmes and Rs 20,000 per annum to the landless farmers entirely from the state budget only.

A budget of Rs 9,400 crore is proposed for Annadatha Sukhibhava PM Kisan scheme for the year 2025-26.

The minister has proposed a budget of Rs 12,401 crore during the 2025-26 for implementation of various farmers welfare and development programmes stating that agriculture the key contributor to the state’s economy.

He announced allocations for agriculture, horticulture, sericulture, agriculture marketing department, co-operation department, animal husbandry department, dairy development, fisheries department, Acharya NG Ranga University, AP Fisheries University, Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University, Dr YSR Horticulture University and others.

An amount of Rs 1,023 crore has been proposed for crop insurance scheme for the year 2025-26. Fifteen crops were notified for the crop insurance for the rabi 2024-25 and mango crop was reintroduced from rabi 2024-25 under weather-based crop insurance scheme.

An amount of Rs 930.88 crore has been allocated for horticulture sector. A total of Rs 96.22 crore were allocated for sericulture, Rs 315.32 crore for agriculture marketing, Rs 239.85 crore for co-operation department and Rs 1,112.07 crore for animal husbandry department.

The minister said the government has decided to set up farm machinery banks with 1,000 drones with subsidy funds of Rs 80 crore. He further said budget of Rs 219.65 crore is proposed for 2025-26 towards farm mechanisation.

He said the government is taking appropriate action to bring smart agriculture and precision agriculture policies to make agriculture profitable for farmers by adopting Good Agriculture Practices.

He said generation of farmer unique IDs to landowner farmer is in progress. These IDs will help in providing government services to farmers in more efficient manner, he added.

Referring to tenant farmers, he said the government decided to enact AP New Tenancy Act 2024 to issue tenant entitlement cards to all eligible tenants so as to provide hassle-free crop loans as well as to implement all the benefits of the government welfare schemes. To settle interest subsidy claims for crop loans taken during rabi 2023-24 and kharif 2024, an amount of Rs 250 crore is proposed for the financial year to implement Interest-free loans.

Atchannaidu announced Rs 61.78 crore to implement natural farming by 15 lakh farmer families in 6.5 lakh hectare during 2025-26.