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Union Cabinet Approves Rs 2,817 Crore for Digital Agriculture Mission

• ByStartupStory     |    September 3, 2024

the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved an outlay of Rs 2,817 crore for the Digital Agriculture Mission. This initiative aims to enhance farmers’ income and create employment opportunities within the sector.

According to an official statement, the approval includes a central share of Rs 1,940 crore. The Digital Agriculture Mission is part of a broader package of seven programmes with a total outlay of nearly Rs 14,000 crore.

Transforming Agriculture through Digital Initiatives

The Digital Agriculture Mission is envisioned as an umbrella scheme to support various digital agriculture initiatives. This includes creating digital public infrastructure, implementing the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), and advancing other IT initiatives by the central and state governments, as well as academic and research institutions.

The mission aims to provide timely and reliable information for the agriculture sector and offer farmer-centric digital services. A key component is the creation of a digital identity for farmers, similar to Aadhaar.

In the Union Budget 2023-24, the government announced the building of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for agriculture. This initiative has been augmented in the Budget 2024-25.

“The Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for agriculture aims to provide comprehensive and useful data on farmers comprising authenticated demographic details, land holdings, and crops sown,” the statement said. It will include cultivators and tenant farmers, according to state government policies.

Key Components of the Digital Agriculture Mission

The mission will establish three Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs): Agristack, Krishi Decision Support System, and Soil Profile Mapping.

AgriStack: This farmer-centric DPI will enable efficient and faster service delivery to farmers. Built as a federated structure, AgriStack involves a collaborative effort between central and state agencies. It includes foundational registries such as the Farmers’ Registry, Geo-referenced village maps, and the Crop Sown Registry. Farmers will be provided a digital identity, known as the ‘Farmer ID’, which will be linked to various aspects of their agricultural activities.

Krishi Decision Support System: This system will create a comprehensive geospatial framework to unify information on crops, soil, weather, and water resources.

Soil Profile Mapping: The mission plans to develop detailed Soil Profile Maps on a 1:10,000 scale for about 142 million hectares of agricultural land. A detailed soil profile inventory of 29 million hectares has already been completed.

Progress and Targets

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the centre and state governments to implement the DPI for agriculture. So far, 19 states have signed MoUs with the Union Agriculture Ministry.

Pilots for creating Farmer IDs have been conducted in districts across six states: Uttar Pradesh (Farrukhabad), Gujarat (Gandhinagar), Maharashtra (Beed), Haryana (Yamuna Nagar), Punjab (Fatehgarh Sahib), and Tamil Nadu (Virudhnagar). The target is to create digital identities for 11 crore farmers by 2026.

The Digital Crop Survey, part of the DGCES, aims to launch nationwide within two years, covering 400 districts in FY 2024-25 and all districts by FY 2025-26.

Employment Opportunities and Efficiency

The mission is expected to generate around 2.5 lakh jobs through digital crop surveys and data collection. It aims to make service delivery mechanisms more efficient and transparent, leveraging trustful data and modern technologies such as artificial intelligence.

The government stated, “A farmer would be able to digitally identify and authenticate himself/herself to access benefits and services, obviating cumbersome paperwork and with little or no need to physically visit various offices or service providers.”

This mission is poised to enhance efficiency and transparency in schemes like paperless MSP-based procurement, crop insurance, and credit card-linked crop loans, while also promoting balanced fertilizer use.

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