White paper outlines steps to improve Indian agriculture
New Delhi: The Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA) on Thursday said feeding India’s projected population of 1.6 billion by 2050 would require a 70 per cent increase in food production. A FAIFA white paper outlined four strategic pillars, artificial intelligence, permaculture adoption, export competitiveness and farmer-centric finance, to future-proof Indian agriculture.
The white paper was released at a seminar organised by FAIFA ahead of Kisan Divas, which discussed mounting pressures on India’s food system. The report highlighted agriculture’s critical role in meeting population growth, rising disposable incomes and the rapid expansion of the middle class, which is reshaping dietary preferences towards more diverse and high-value foods. These demand-side pressures, it said, are compounded by shrinking and fragmented farmland due to urbanisation, industrial expansion and inheritance patterns.
To build a modern and sustainable agriculture sector with empowered farmers, the white paper proposed a four-pillar strategy. The first, focused on permaculture, recommends an investment of Rs 10,000 crore between 2026 and 2030 to bring five million hectares under permaculture-based farming.
The second pillar calls for export diversification, backed by an investment of Rs 15,000 crore to raise agricultural exports to $100 billion through 50 agri-export zones, cold-chain expansion, quality certification and value addition in high-value crops.
The third pillar stresses maintaining India’s non-GMO agricultural integrity, recommending an allocation of Rs 5,000 crore over five years to expand indigenous seed varieties by 50 per cent and develop 100 climate-resilient non-GMO crops.
Finally, the paper said agricultural financing could be transformed through annual credit disbursement of Rs 50,000 crore, scaling up to Rs 25 lakh crore by 2028, to support 50 million small and marginal farmers through AI-driven digital lending.
Addressing the seminar, Union Minister of State Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma said the Centre’s policies were strengthening food security and building a resilient, technology-driven agricultural ecosystem. He said initiatives such as digital agriculture, indigenous seed development, sustainable farming practices and enhanced agri-financing reflected the government’s commitment to making Indian agriculture future-ready, profitable and globally competitive.
The minister added that the ideas presented by FAIFA aligned with the government’s vision of Viksit Bharat, in which empowered farmers play a central role in national growth and economic transformation.
