Centre raps states for tardy progress in digital agriculture mission

The Centre has questioned states over delays in implementing the Digital Agriculture Mission, with 61 per cent of India's sown area linked to Farmer IDs

Days before a possible review by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan questioned top state officials about delays in completing the Digital Agriculture Mission at a National Conference on AgriStack under the Digital Agriculture Mission and Mission for Aatmanirbharta in Pulses, held in New Delhi over the weekend.

 

Touted as the digital ecosystem for agriculture, the mission envisages a comprehensive farmers’ registry that enables them to seamlessly avail themselves of various services with Centre and state linkages.

 

Meanwhile, participants at the conference noted that most states have yet to link their procurement and fertiliser sales with Farmer IDs or even identify all cultivators. While the Union minister hinted at tardy states, states cited practical difficulties.

 

“(In states) where serious efforts were made, we have achieved results…some states could not because they did not put in efforts. There is no other reason,” said Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, after reviewing the mission's progress.

 

The Digital Agriculture Mission, which is nearly two years old, has linked 61 per cent of the country's sown area with a Farmer ID as of August 15.

 

Seventeen states, including Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana, Assam, Kerala, Odisha, and West Bengal, have less than a third of their sown area linked to a Farmer ID, according to data maintained by the Union Agriculture Ministry.

 

The Farmer ID, envisaged for all cultivators nationwide, comprises a farmers’ registry intended to shape the digital ecosystem for agriculture (AgriStack), linking state and central governments.

 

On the adoption of AgriStack-enabled digital solutions, the nationwide review noted that only Madhya Pradesh and Goa have statewide fertiliser sales through Farmer IDs, even as pilots are underway in most states. States including Jharkhand, Telangana, Punjab, and Haryana are yet to initiate this framework, which was mentioned as a milestone under the Centre’s Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment (SASCI).

 

“Today the government subsidises this (fertilisers); this is not a revdi (sops) that we will give to everyone,” said Shyam Singh Rana, Agriculture Minister, Haryana. He urged the participants to provide Farmer IDs to real cultivators and not merely owners.

 

The Digital Crop Survey (DCS), as part of DAM, is intended to complement the Digital Crop Estimation Survey in producing real-time crop production estimates.

 

However, only eight states have used digital crop survey estimates for their figures so far.

 

“This helps in our policy decisions; if we have to export or import, that depends on the production estimates. Currently, the estimates are out after a while. We have three advanced estimates, meaning final estimates take more than a year. This (DCS) can give real-time data,” said a senior official from the Union Agriculture Ministry.

 

Notably, states attributed the delays to the presence of peri-urban settlements around cities, name mismatches in the records, and the need for deduplication drives. Senior state officials also mentioned that personnel were diverted for SIR duty and disaster relief.

 

Earlier, the review pointed out that eight states, including West Bengal and Jharkhand, initiated Farmer IDs for their cultivators only this month. Also, 22 states are yet to frame a mechanism to provide IDs to sharecroppers, tenants, and such cultivators.

 

“For camps, ₹15,000 is given; money is given for each Farmer ID. I don't know honestly how many camps were set,” said Chouhan as he urged states to achieve saturation.

 

Ministers and officials from the North-eastern region highlighted the terrain, rainfall, tenancy, and lack of conventional land records. Only Sikkim had more than a third of the state's sown area linked to a Farmer ID.

 

“We don't have conventional Record of Rights (RoR) or cadastral maps which can establish ownership for individual land parcels. This presents a fundamental challenge in standard AgriStack architecture,” said Gabriel D. Wangsu, Minister of Agriculture and Allied Sectors, Arunachal Pradesh. He sought flexibility to scale up AgriStack around the state’s customised approach.

 

A senior official explained that, in the absence of land records, satellite data is used to delineate farm boundaries in these states, which is further mapped on the ground, leading to a land parcel ID.

 

Another senior official from the Union Agriculture Ministry said that targets on Farmer IDs were based on the decade-old agriculture census held in 2015-16. Once numbers from 2021-22 are out, operational land holdings are slated to increase by about 2 crore, he indicated.

 

Selected findings from the conference, which included a review of the Mission for Aatmanirbharta (self-sufficiency) in pulses, are likely to be reviewed by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, August 25, according to official sources.