Govt banks on digital technologies to double farmers income

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Keeping in view of doubling farmers incomes, the government is working on a mission mode to boost the digital infrastructure creation in the agriculture sector under Digital Agriculture Mission.

In September 2021, the government announced the launch of Digital Agriculture Mission 2021–2025 to support and accelerate agri-growth, leveraging technologies, like AI, block chain, remote sensing and GIS technology and use of drones and robots.

The Agriculture sector recorded significant growth in the past two years, accounting for a siz eable 18.8% (2021-22) in Gross Value Added (GVA) of the country and registering a growth of 3.6% in 2020-21 and 3.9% in 2021-22. Digital Agriculture Mission, will further boost this growth by helping the government in better reaching the farmers and also take better policy decisions using the data repository.

Initiatives under Digital Agriculture Mission

The Department of agriculture and Farmer’s welfare is in the process of finalizing a framework for creating Agristack in the country. ‘AgriStack’ is a collection of agricultural datasets and associated technologies on a unified platform aimed at providing end-to-end services across the agriculture food value chain to farmers.

The agristack will serve as a foundation to build innovative agri-focused solutions, leveraging digital technologies to improve the efficiency of the sector. Services and solutions that can be derived using already available data are being developed as Proof of Concepts (PoC) by the Agri-tech startups. Such concepts will be scaled up at the national level after assessing their viability.

Funds are released to the States/Union Territories for the projects involving use of modern information technologies such as Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Block Chain Technology, Internet of Things, Robotics etc.

Various mobile applications including KisanSuvidha have also been developed to inform farmers about weather, market prices, plant protection, agro-advisory. The mobile applications will also have information of dealers delivering key agri-inputs, Soil Health Card, cold storage & godowns, soil testing laboratories and other government schemes.

Digital apps help farmers adopt technology

National Agriculture Market (eNAM): Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis were linked to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities under a pan-India electronic trading portal called eNAM. eNAM was launched in 2016 and it helps farmers sell products without any mediators, thus assuring better returns.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare signed an MoU with Microsoft in June 2021, to run a pilot programme for 100 villages in 6 states. Under the MoU, Microsoft will create a ‘Unified Farmer Services Interface’ through its cloud computing services.