Explained: India’s Ambitious INR 2,817 Cr Digital Agriculture Mission

After a delay of more than three years, India’s Digital Agriculture Mission (DAM) is finally shaping up. The Union Cabinet has approved the INR 2,817 Cr mission for the creation of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to supercharge the Indian agriculture sector. 

Originally planned for launch in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22), the digital agriculture mission was reportedly delayed as Covid-19 pandemic swept through the country and put the plans on the back burner. 

But, the mission was thrusted into headlines earlier this year as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech, reiterated the full-scale roll out of a digital public infrastructure (DPI) for the agriculture sector.

That said, the Centre has now set the ball rolling to build DPIs that will offer farmer-centric digital services, relay timely and reliable information to farmers, among others. Leveraging emerging technologies such as data analytics, artificial intelligence and remote sensing, the project has been approved with a total outlay of INR 2,817 Cr, of which the Centre will contribute around INR 1,940 Cr.

“The DPI for Agriculture aims to provide comprehensive and useful data on farmers comprising authenticated demographic details, land holdings and crops sown. It will include cultivators and tenant farmers, as per the policy of the state government… Aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047, the DPI for agriculture forms the core of the Digital Agriculture Mission,” said an official statement.

Part of the agriculture ministry’s activities planned for the first 100 days of the new union government, the mission will be rolled out across the country over the next two years (until FY26).

But what is the government’s much touted Digital Agriculture Mission and how will it disrupt the ailing Indian farm sector?

Modelled on the lines of other DPIs such as Aadhaar and unified payments interface (UPI), the DAM will be built on three key pillars, which include AgriStack, Krishi Decision Support System (DSS), and Soil Profile Maps. 

Complementing this will be the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), which will look to create a tech-based ecosystem to provide accurate estimates of agricultural production by leveraging “scientifically designed crop-cutting experiments”. 

Decoding The Three Pillars 

AgriStack

The first cornerstone of the digital agriculture mission will be the creation of AgriStack, a farmer-centric DPI that will allow farmers to access services in an efficient, easy, and faster manner. Additionally, it has been envisaged with streamlining delivery of schemes to farmers. 

To be built and maintained by state and union territory (UT) governments, AgriStack will comprise three “foundational registries or databases” pertaining to the sector. These include:

• Farmers’ Registry: Under this, farmers will be assigned a digital identity number (Farmer ID), just like Aadhaar, which will be dynamically linked to the respective state’s local data such as land records, livestock ownership, crops sown, demographic details, family details, schemes and benefits availed. 
• Crop Sown Registry: This database will track crops sown by farmers and will be recorded through mobile-based ground surveys such as Digital Crop Survey that will be conducted each season.
• Geo-Referenced Village Maps: Leveraging GIS mapping, this piece of the puzzle will link geographic information on land records with their physical locations.

However, work is already underway to operationalise these databases. In an official statement, the Ministry of Agriculture said that so far memorandums of understanding (MoUs) have been signed between the Centre and as many 19 states to create and implement the DPI. 

The government claims to have already built the basic IT infrastructure for implementing the AgriStack, adding that the project has already been tested on a pilot basis in multiple states. 

For instance, trials have already been conducted for the creation of Farmer IDs across six states including Uttar Pradesh (Farrukhabad), Gujarat (Gandhinagar), Maharashtra (Beed), Haryana (Yamuna Nagar), Punjab (Fatehgarh Sahib), and Tamil Nadu (Virudhnagar). 

Additionally, a pilot Digital Crop Survey was conducted across 11 states in FY24 to aid the development of the Crop Sown Registry. Going forward, the Agriculture Ministry has set its eyes on pan-India roll out of the survey by FY26, with 400 districts slated to be covered under the survey in the ongoing fiscal (FY25). 

Overall, the Centre plans to create digital identities for 11 Cr farmers under the project in the next three years, including 6 Cr in FY25, 3 Cr in FY26 and 2 Cr IDs in FY27. 

The Krishi Decision Support System

This DPI will pave the way for the creation of a comprehensive geospatial ecosystem to bring all remote sensing-based information on one platform including data on crop, soil, weather, water resources, among others.

Soil Profile Mapping

The Digital Agriculture Mission will also create detailed soil profile maps (on a 1:10,000 scale) spanning across nearly 142 Mn hectares of India’s agricultural land. As per the Ministry, a detailed soil profile inventory of about 29 Mn hectares has already been completed.

The Impact

The Agriculture Ministry expects the Digital Agriculture Mission to have a “catalytic” effect on the creation of both direct and indirect employment in the sector. 

It estimates that projects under the mission, including digital crop surveys and collection of “ground-truthed” data for remote sensing, will provide employment opportunities to about 2.5 Lakh trained local youth and “Krishi Sakhis”.

Besides, the agri-focussed DPIs will enable farmers to easily authenticate themselves digitally to access benefits and services. This, the government believes, will obviate cumbersome paperwork and need to physically visit various offices. 

As such, farmers can access a range of services online such as crop loans, connecting to agri-input suppliers and buyers of agricultural produce, accessing personalised advisories in real time, among others. 

“The trustful data would help government agencies make schemes and services more efficient and transparent, such as paperless MSP-based procurement, crop insurance, and credit card-linked crop loans, and develop systems for the balanced use of fertilisers, etc,” added a statement.

Alongside, data from digital crop survey, DGCES and remote-sending data will help in estimating crop production, thereby facilitating crop diversification and evaluating irrigation needs as per crop and season.

Meanwhile, the government plans to leverage Krishi decision support system to identify crop sown patterns, drought and flood monitoring and technology-based yield assessment for settling crop insurance claims by farmers.

“The DPI for agriculture developed under the Mission will enable the stakeholders in the agriculture ecosystem to establish efficient value chains for agricultural inputs and post-harvest processes, as also in developing solutions for customised advisory services to farmers relating to crop planning, crop health, pest and disease management, and irrigation requirements, ensuring that our farmers receive the best possible and timely guidance and services,” added the Ministry. 

While it remains to be seen whether the Digital Agriculture Mission is able to emulate the success of UPI, all eyes will be on how the Centre effectively works out the implementation of the scheme. 

That said, the move will also pave the way for Indian agritechs to leverage this data and build products on top of the stack. Home to 1,000+ agritech startups, the DPI is expected to push the needle on the homegrown agritech economy which, as per Inc42, is projected to be a $25 Bn opportunity by 2025.