GS Paper - III

The Union Cabinet on 2 September 2024 approved the Rs 2,817-crore Digital Agriculture Mission for the creation of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in the farm sector.

The DPI 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, which have over the years resulted in digital solutions such as 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.

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. Nineteen states have come on board so far, a source said.
• The basic IT infrastructure for implementing AgriStack, one of the three DPIs to be built under the Mission, has been developed and tested on a pilot basis.

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.
• 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.
• GEO-REFERENCED VILLAGE MAPS: The maps will link geographic information on land records with their physical locations.

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.

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.
• Better data will help government agencies make schemes and services such as paperless Minimum Support Price (MSP)-based procurement, crop insurance, and credit card-linked crop loans more efficient and transparent, and develop systems for the balanced use of fertilisers.
• The digitally captured data on crop-sown area, along with the DGCES-based yield and remote-sensing data, will help improve the accuracy of crop production estimates.
• The data will also help facilitate crop diversification and evaluate irrigation needs according to the crop and season.
• The DGCES will provide yield estimates based on scientifically designed crop-cutting experiments, which will be useful in making accurate estimates of agricultural production.