With progress in farmers digital identity (ID) generation and digital crop survey (DCS), the government has started using these data for providing a hosts of services. These include direct cash transfer under PM Kisan, digital agricultural credit, benefits under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and issuance of soil health cards.
These digitals tools are coming in handy to ensure faster and more targetted delivery of benefits and avoid cumbersome paperwork.
According to an agriculture ministry official, under AgriStack, part of the government’s digital public infrastructure initiative, farmers’ digital IDs linked to land records, which is similar to Aadhaar, are now used for new registration under the direct cash transfer program PM Kisan, granting agri-credit and for crop insurance.
“We have also started using the crop sown data under DCS to verify whether the farmer has grown the same crop as claimed while taking loans under the Kisan Credit Cards and while applying for the crop insurance,” an official told FE.
Since the launch of AgriStack last year, digital IDs to over 64 million farmers across 14 states have been generated out of which over 43 million IDs have been seeded into PM Kisan.
Since the beginning of year, the agriculture ministry has made it mandatory for the new applicant for the PM Kisan to get digital ids linked to their land records for getting the financial benefits.
Under PM Kisan, around 90 million farmers get direct cash benefit of Rs 6000 annually through three equal instalments.
Over 8.6 millions IDs have been seeded to PMFBY. “Farmer with IDs will get services instantly without any paperwork,” the official said.
In 2025-26 under Agri-Stack, the government has made an allocation of Rs 4,000 crore for developing farmer registries, including legal heir systems, and Rs 2,000 crore for conducting DCS aimed at incentivizing states to accelerate their adoption of digital tools.
For crop output estimates, the ministry has started using crop sown area data of DCS in 12 states including Bihar, Gujarat, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
While stating that the DCS was conducted across 17 states in the rabi season of 2024-25, an official said “more states need to be onboarded to conduct this across the country,”. At present 29 states, with the exception of West Bengal and few UTs, have signed MoUs or Agri-Stack implementation.
At present, soil health cards using farmer ID and Geo-referenced village maps in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat have started.
Pilots are being conducted across Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, for sanctioning crop loans digitally within an hour‘s time has connected to Agri Stack.
For the procurement of pulses and oilseeds under PM-ASHA by agencies — NAFED and NCCF, have identified farmers growing arhar and masoor varieties of pulses using the farmer registry and crop sown data under DCS.
The agriculture ministry last week signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Maharashtra, Kerala, Bihar and Odisha and public sector banks for seamless digital access to credit services through farmer registry-linked authentication which would reduce paper-works and benefit small and marginal farmers.
The ministry is aiming to provide 110 million farmers with these unique IDs, referred to as Kisan Pehchaan Patra, containing the details of the farmers’ land holding, crops grown in the field and other details, by the end of FY27.
According to estimates, there are 140 million farmers in the country and around 30-40% of e gross cropped area is cultivated by farmers who do not hold the land.
Devesh Chaturvedi, secretary, department of agriculture and farmers welfare has urged states to dynamically linked farmers registries with updated records of rights for their agricultural lands for providing personalised agricultural services.