New scheme for coconut, cocoa, cashew and sandalwood announced in Budget

The Centre will support high-value crops such as coconut, sandalwood, cocoa and cashew in the coastal areas of the country, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her Budget speech on Sunday (February 1, 2026). However, the allocation for the scheme was ₹350 crore with farmers organisations stating that the new initiative was just another rhetoric.

“Agar trees in the Northeast and nuts such as almonds, walnuts and pine nuts in our hilly regions will also be supported,” she said. The Minister said high-value agriculture will diversify farm outputs, increase productivity, enhance farmers’ incomes, and create new employment opportunities.

World’s largest coconut producer

She said India is the world’s largest producer of coconuts and about 30 million people, including nearly 10 million farmers, depend on coconuts for their livelihood. “To further enhance competitiveness in coconut production, I propose a Coconut Promotion Scheme to increase production and enhance productivity through various interventions including replacing old and non-productive trees with new saplings/plants/varieties in major coconut growing States,” she said.

Ms. Sitharaman said a dedicated programme is proposed for Indian cashew and cocoa to make the country self-reliant in raw cashew and cocoa production and processing, enhance export competitiveness and transform Indian cashew and Indian cocoa into premium global brands by 2030.

Regarding sandalwood, she said the tree is closely linked to India’s social and cultural heritage. “Our government will partner with State governments to promote focused cultivation and post-harvest processing to restore the glory of the Indian sandalwood ecosystem,” she said.

To rejuvenate old, low-yielding orchards and expand high-density cultivation of walnuts, almonds and pine nuts, she said the Centre will support a dedicated programme to enhance farmer incomes and in bringing value addition by engaging youth.

Farmers organisations, however, are not enamoured by the announcement. “The rhetoric on investing in cash crops continued even in this year’s Budget. The speech underlined a focus on coconut, cocoa, cashew, nuts, and sandalwood. However, in reality, missions such as Cotton Technology Mission, Mission on Pulses, Hybrid Seeds, and Makhana Board, introduced in the past, find no mention in the budgetary figures,” the All India Kisan Sabha said in a statement.