19 May 2025, New Delhi: A silent crisis is brewing across India’s farms, with implications far beyond the boundaries of the rural economy. Weeds—often overlooked in policy dialogues—are inflicting heavy losses on crop productivity and national food output. The Kisan-Vigyan Foundation, through its new white paper titled “India’s National Weed Management Strategy – Ensuring Food Security by 2047”, urges policymakers to rethink the nation’s approach to weed control as an integral part of agricultural planning and food security.
Despite contributing to an annual loss of ₹92,000 crore in farm output, weed management continues to be neglected in national programs and policy funding. While discussions around seeds, irrigation, fertilizer subsidies, and digital farming dominate policy spaces, weed control is mostly absent from strategic conversations—even though it has direct implications for yield losses and farmer incomes.
The white paper calls for a comprehensive integration of weed management into state and central agricultural policies. This includes establishing dedicated schemes for training and capacity building, incentivizing adoption of herbicides, integrated weed management (IWM) ,encouraging innovation in herbicides, agriculture machineries (boom sprayers/ drones) to enhance coverage over larger areas and bio-based weed control alternatives.
Currently, herbicides make up only 15.8% of the total pesticides used in India. With manual weeding growing costlier and less accessible, reliance on outdated practices continues, especially among small and marginal farmers. Policymakers have a crucial role in ensuring that weed management does not remain the poor cousin of pest and disease control.
As India moves toward its 2047 vision of food and nutritional security for 1.6 billion people, policy inertia on weed management can no longer be afforded. Effective interventions today—through regulation, research funding, and incentives—can prevent major losses in future food supply, reduce input costs, and ensure environmental sustainability.
The Kisan-Vigyan Foundation’s appeal to policymakers is clear: elevate weed management to a core component of agricultural strategy. Without it, the vision of doubling farmer incomes and achieving sustainable food security may remain unfulfilled.
Download the full white paper on India’s National Weed Management Strategy hereto explore the detailed data, scientific insights, and policy recommendations.
About Kisan-Vigyan Foundation
Kisan-Vigyan Foundation (KAKV) is a think-tank created to focus on Food & Feed Security of India and to support policies for the economic welfare of the farmers. The foundation has strong governing council members from core sectors of agriculture to work on fact-based research findings and to raise concerns where necessary.
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