AgriStack DPI to plug gaps in data collection system, says government

To overhaul the system, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare approved the DAM for the creation of a DPI to enable a robust digital agriculture ecosystem in the country.

A report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, ‘Review of Crop Statistics System in India through the scheme of Improvement of Crop Statistics 2023-24’, revealed several operational bottlenecks in the agricultural data collection system.

 

In a written response to a question in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ramnath Thakur clarified that the gaps, including non-coverage of the entire area, non-reporting of minor crops, and errors in recording ancillary information, pertained to the period when data collection relied on manual processes.

 

To overhaul the system, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare approved the Digital Agriculture Mission (DAM) for the creation of a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to enable a robust digital agriculture ecosystem in the country.

 

Under this, the government has rolled out AgriStack DPI, which incorporates the crop-sown registry undertaken as the Digital Crop Survey (DCS). It collects data via a mobile interface, ensuring data is captured directly from the field. This data provides accurate, real-time crop area information for every agricultural plot, which helps to arrive at improved production estimates.

 

During the rabi season 2025-26, DCS was conducted in 24 states across 648 districts, covering more than 31.3 crore plots across the country, the minister said.

 

Additionally, the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), used for crop yield estimation by conducting crop-cutting experiments (CCEs), was also launched by the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW).

 

DGCES is now being implemented across 23 states/UTs with the larger aim of streamlining the entire crop yield generation process.