To estimate a robust crop sown area and output of various agricultural commodities in advance, the government is aiming to cover all the states under digital crop survey by next year.
This survey is being conducted through various digital applications initiated under the ministry of agriculture’s Rs 2,817 crore digital agriculture mission. It will eventually replace the manual Patwari-Girdawari system and establish a crop-sown registry for periodic crop yield estimation.
In the current fiscal, the crop production survey has been conducted in 436 districts for Kharif 2024. Officials stated that a robust crop estimation would provide more accurate production forecasts and help implement measures to improve supply.
Sources told FE traditionally under the Patwari-Gardawar system the state revenue officials collect data on crop and land records manually which is prone to human errors leading to distortion in the estimation of crop area and other farm-level information.
“Digital crop survey uses technologies including remote sensing, geospatial analysis, and artificial intelligence to generate crop production data, which are more robust,” an official said.
According to an official note, the data generated from the crop survey will assist government agencies in implementing minimum support price (MSP) based procurement, providing crop insurance and credit card-linked crop loans, and developing systems for the balanced use of fertilizers, among other measures.
In 2023-24, the government had initiated the digital crop survey across 11 states to provide support for creating the crop sown registry. Officials said that the survey would be expanded across the country in the next fiscal.
In November, last year for the first time data from the digital crop survey was used for the first advance estimate of foodgrain production for 2024-25 crop year (July-June).
The crop estimation for Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Odisha using digital crop survey for Kharif season, 2024, which according to officials has led to a rise in area under rice especially in Uttar Pradesh.
The digital public infrastructure (DPI) project aimed at streamlining and scheme delivery to farmers was announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has three components – farmers’ registry, geo-referenced village maps and crop sown registry.
The DPI aims to integrate state and central digital systems to provide a range of farmer-centric services, including information on livestock, fisheries, soil health, and available benefits. Under DPI, 10 million digital unique IDs of farmers referred to as Kisan Pehchaan Patra contain the details of the farmers’ land holding, crops grown in the field and other details that have been generated so far in 10 states. Gujarat (32 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (30 lakh) and Madhya Pradesh (28 lakh) have made major progress in providing farmers’ IDs.
Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar are the other states that have started the programme for providing Ids. The government is aiming to provide farmers’ IDs to around 110 million farmers over the next couple of years which would make it easier for the government to provide direct cash benefits, sanction credits, crop insurance and other schemes.