One of the pivotal factors that made MK Stalin's first budget historical is presenting the first budget exclusively for agriculture for the first time in Tamil Nadu's history. On August 13, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan has presented the revised budget for the state for 2021-22 in which the government had announced the reducal of petrol price and made fund allotments for the departments. 

Exactly a day after the presentation of the revised budget, Tamil Nadu Agriculture Minister MRK Panneerselvam has on Saturday presented the first agriculture budget for the state. The minister said that that the agriculture budget is dedicated to farmers who are protesting in Delhi against the three farm laws enacted by the Union government. The agriculture budget has included providing free electricity and subsidy schemes to the farmers. The following are the highlights of the agriculture budget,

• Farmers involved in vegetable cultivation will be given inputs or an incentive of Rs 15,000 per hectare. Rs 29.12 crore will be allotted to increase the fruit crop production.
• The government will allocate Rs 4,508.32 crore for providing free electricity to farmers and the solar-powered pump subsidy scheme will be implemented at the cost of Rs 114.68 crore. 
• The price of sugarcane procurement will be increased to Rs 2,900 from Rs 2,750 per tonne. Rs 40 crore will be allocated towards incentives for sugarcane farmers in 2021-22. 
• Tarpaulins will be procured at the cost of Rs 52 crore to preserve paddy bags at the Direct Purchase Centre (DPC). 
• The government will procure 61,000 tonnes of millet from farmers in the state and palm jaggery will be sold in fair price shops to increase its use among the people in Tamil Nadu.
• A special centre for jackfruit will be established at Panruti in the Cuddalore district and 500 farm ponds will be created at the cost of Rs 1 lakh each at 100% subsidy. 
• Steps will be taken to acquire geographical indication tag to Kollimalai pepper, Panruti jackfruit, and Ponni rice. An integrated village agriculture market will be established for the farmers in the Nilgiris district. 
• A research centre for turmeric will be established in Erode and Nammalvar organic farming research centre, named after organic farming scientist G Nammalvar will be set up on the campus of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University for performing researches on organic farming. 
• The incentive given by the state government for a common variety of paddy in addition to the minimum support price will be increased to Rs 75 from Rs 50 while the incentive for Grade A variety paddy will be increased to Rs 100 from Rs 70. 
• The government has allocated Rs 6 crore to set up 'Uzhavar Santhai'.

The announcements in the first exclusive agriculture budget had won many hearts. However, some peasants had also raised concerns that the announcements could have been made strong by adding some robust points. While speaking to a news agency, prominent farmer Ayyakannu had said that it is happy that Tamil Nadu had become the first state to introduce a budget, especially for agriculture. Expressing his disappointment over not mentioning the robust measure of providing Minimum Support Price, he said that some factors could have been done in a better way.

He noted that there wasn't any announcement regarding the schemes of Prime Minister Modi and added that the farmers need more infrastructure on the Direct Purchase Centre as about 20% of paddy is getting damaged and wasted due to rain and such infrastructure can mitigate this problem. By expressing his happiness that youngsters are getting more interest in agriculture, he said that the farmers expect support price from the government and added that the state government must provide some concession to the farmers. 

In what has become a historical session, Tamil Nadu had seen many firsts in the budget session, besides the first budget of MK Stalin. It is the first e-budget for Tamil Nadu - each MLA would be given an electronic device in which they can access the budget rather than the preceding era of paper budgets. It would be the first revised budget to be presented outside of the Chief Secretariat- the budget session will be hosted by Kalaivanar Hall in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. It also has become the first budget session where a separate budget for agriculture has been presented.