Meat covered over agribusiness concessions in the budget

- Commodity Current - Jayavadan Gandhi

As the countdown to Union Budget-2023 to be presented on 1st February has started, it seems that the government's emphasis on the mission of increasing agri input and farmer income with a special focus on the promotion of the agricultural sector especially for the commodities sector. As the government is emphasizing on natural organic farming, the expenditure on fertilizer subsidy is expected to be limited to around Rs 1.4 to 1.5 lakh crore in the next financial year along with cost reduction policy. The government has gradually increased the support prices over the last few years with the aim of increasing farmers' incomes. is However, since the government's target has not yet been achieved, the government's emphasis on both the above-mentioned factors remains high this year. In the last four years, support prices have increased from four percent to 13 percent. Cereals have increased by six percent, oilseeds and pulses by six to seven percent. On the occasion of the World Grains Year, millet prices have increased by 11 per cent and ragi by 13 per cent to Rs 2,350 and Rs 3,578 per quintal respectively. The open market price of wheat has gone up to Rs 3,000 from the support price of Rs 2,125 per quintal. Due to the low supply of wheat, the boom has been sustained. There is a shortage of wheat commodities in most of the agricultural markets in eastern India. The government has also stopped giving quantity of wheat to the poor. There are indications that wheat stocks are low with flour millers. An average increase of 16 percent in wheat prices and 19 percent in flour prices has been observed during the last year. However, since wheat cultivation has increased by an average of one and a half percent in rabi season this year, it is expected that the production will also be as per the target. Since the beginning of this month, the prices have been continuously rising with many rationalists in the wheat market as the government has not yet sold its wheat stock in the open market.

On the other hand, the cultivation of oilseed crops has increased significantly this year as the government is exercising to become self-sufficient in oilseeds as well. In order to get better prices for oilseed crops, the government plans to increase the duty on food palm oil from 5 to 7.5 percent in the next budget. Currently, the customs duty is 12.5 percent. At present, 60 percent of the country's edible oil needs are being imported. Countries like Indonesia and Malaysia import palm oil on a large scale. While soya oil is imported from Argentina, Brazil and America and sunflower is imported from countries like Russia, Ukraine. Palm oil 60 percent, soybean 25 percent and sunflower 12 to 15 percent are imported into the country.

Cotton and sugar industries have also presented demands before the government for relief in the next budget. There have been proposals to cancel the import duty on cotton and implement the remission of tax on export scheme along with the provision of a special platform for hedging and free trading of futures abroad.

Khad industry has also demanded implementation of the above remission scheme (RODTEP) and increase in support prices. The prices were last increased in 2019. Apart from this, it has also been introduced to give financial assistance to the mills on ethanol production. In the spice market, cumin is at the top, and the market is at the level of 33000, while red beetroot is the talk of the market.