India, Feb. 3 -- Budget 2026-27, presented on Sunday, and Economic Survey 2025-26, presented on Friday, both referenced the "reform express" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken about earlier, highlighting the pace of structural changes underway. Finance minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman noted on Sunday that over 350 reforms have been undertaken since August 15, 2025, and indicated that the coming year would continue this momentum. Against the backdrop of such dynamism, one expected agriculture - so central to inflation, livelihoods, sustainability, and food systems - to feature prominently in Sitharaman's speech, in its outlining of the FM's priorities for growth. It did not. The budget documents, however, present nuances worth discussing. Farmers and farming did not explicitly appear among the six focus areas identified for accelerating and sustaining economic growth in the financial year 2026-27. These priorities are: (i) scaling up manufacturing in seven strategic and frontier sectors; (ii) rejuvenating legacy industrial sectors; (iii) creating "Champion MSMEs"; (iv) delivering a powerful push to infrastructure; (v) ensuring long-term energy security and stability; and (vi) developing City Economic Regions. However, the announcement of Bharat-VISTAAR - a multilingual Artificial Intelligence (AI) advisory platform integrating AgriStack and ICAR advisories - is a significant step in digitising such services to farmers. With an allocation of Rs.150 crore, this initiative attempts to bring real-time, credible advisory services to farmers by leveraging India's growing digital agriculture architecture. This digital leap is in contrast with the budgetary trajectory for agricultural R&D. The allocation for the department of agricultural research and education (DARE) has declined marginally compared to the previous year. While the reduction is small, the signal is important: Digital dissemination is being prioritised without a corresponding strengthening of the knowledge-generation backbone, at a time when climate variability, emerging pests, and yield pressures demand stronger research investment. The Economic Survey made a strong case for redesigning fertiliser subsidy through direct benefits transfer (DBT) to farmers on a per-acre basis, to correct nutrient imbalance and fiscal distortions. In contrast, the budget does not advance this reform direction. Allocations linked to DBT in fertiliser appear to have been reduced to negligible levels, suggesting that this reform pathway is not an immediate priority in FY27. Allocations under irrigation programmes have seen moderation. Funding under the Har Khet Ko Pani component and the broader Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana has declined compared to the previous year's budget estimates. With nearly 45% of India's gross cropped area still dependent on rainfall, the pace of expanding assured irrigation remains a critical determinant of agricultural stability. The budget expands the articulation of "high value agriculture". Beyond the conventional fruits and vegetables narrative, explicit mention of coconut, cashew, cocoa, almonds, walnuts, and pine nuts signals a push towards diversified, plantation-based and tree-crop agriculture with export and income potential. The announcement of SHE-Marts to create market access for women-owned enterprises is an important gender-inclusion measure. Building on the SHG ecosystem, these women-owned retail platforms can become critical nodes for marketing processed foods, livestock products, fisheries produce, and horticulture goods. Finally, the Budget's most powerful indirect support to agriculture comes through its deep push to infrastructure and logistics. Trust-based customs, a single digital clearance window for food and biological cargo, AI-enabled container scanning at ports, electronic cargo tracking, warehouse digitisation, and removal of export bottlenecks for small consignments collectively create the backbone for faster and more predictable movement of goods. While not framed as agricultural measures, these reforms directly ease the farm-to-market and farm-to-port journey for perishables, fisheries, livestock products, horticulture, and processed foods - areas where logistics costs and delays have historically eroded value realisation for farmers....