Context

• The Union Cabinet approved the Digital Agriculture Mission for the creation of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in the farm sector.

About Digital Agriculture Mission

• The mission to create Digital Public Infrastructure in the agriculture sector is similar to the government’s flagship e-governance initiatives in other sectors like the Aadhaar unique ID, the DigiLocker document folder, the eSign electronic signature service, the unified payments interface (UPI) instant money transfer protocol, and electronic health records.
• Three major components of DPI are envisaged under the Digital Agriculture Mission:
  • AgriStack,
  • Krishi Decision Support System (DSS), and
  • Soil Profile Maps
• Each of these DPI components will provide solutions that will allow farmers to access and avail of various services.
• The mission also aims to create a tech-based ecosystem, the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), which will provide accurate estimates of agricultural production.
• The Mission will be rolled out across the country over the next two years (until 2025-26).

Three pillars of Mission

• The Agriculture Ministry is in the process of signing Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with state governments for the creation and implementation of the DPI for agriculture.

(i) AgriStack

• The farmer-centric DPI AgriStack consists of three foundational agri-sector registries or databases: Farmers’ Registry, Geo-referenced Village Maps, and Crop Sown Registry, all of which will be created and maintained by state/ UT governments.
  • FARMERS’ REGISTRY: Farmers will be given a digital identity (‘Farmer ID’) similar to Aadhaar, which will be linked dynamically to records of land, ownership of livestock, crops sown, demographic details, family details, schemes and benefits availed, etc.
  • According to sources, the government aims to create digital identities for 11 crore farmers, 6 crore of whom will be covered in the current (2024-25) financial year, another 3 crore in 2025-26, and the remaining 2 crore farmers in 2026-27.
  • Once the Registry is created, individual farmers will be able to digitally identify and authenticate themselves to access benefits and services, obviating cumbersome paperwork, and with little or no need to physically visit various offices or service providers.
  • CROP SOWN REGISTRY: The Crop Sown Registry will provide details of crops planted by farmers.
  • The information will be recorded through Digital Crop Surveys — mobile-based ground surveys — in each crop season.
  • The government aims to launch the Digital Crop Survey across the nation over the next two years, covering 400 districts in the current (2024-25) financial year, and the remaining in FY2025-26.
  • GEO-REFERENCED VILLAGE MAPS: The maps will link geographic information on land records with their physical locations.

(ii) Krishi DSS

• The Krishi Decision Support System, which was unveiled recently, will create a comprehensive geospatial system to unify remote sensing-based information on crops, soil, weather, and water resources, etc.
• This information will support crop map generation for identifying crop sown patterns, droughts/ flood monitoring, and technology-/ model-based yield assessment for settling crop insurance claims by farmers.

(iii) Soil Profile Maps

• Under the Mission, detailed Soil Profile Maps (on a 1:10,000 scale) of about 142 million hectares of agricultural land are envisaged to be prepared. A detailed soil profile inventory of about 29 million ha has already been completed.

Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES)

• This will be a major push to improve the existing crop yield estimation system, and to make the data more robust, addressing concerns that are sometimes raised about the accuracy of India’s agriculture production estimates.
  • help government agencies make schemes and services such as paperless Minimum Support Price (MSP)-based procurement,
  • crop insurance,
  • credit card-linked crop loans more efficient and transparent,
  • develop systems for the balanced use of fertilisers,
  • will help improve the accuracy of crop production estimates,
  • facilitate crop diversification and evaluate irrigation needs according to the crop and season.

Source: IE

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