What is Agristack and how will it work? Decoding the digital push for farm sector in Budget

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget for the financial year 2024-25 has proposed Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for the agriculture sector, aiming to bring more than six crore farmers into the formal land registry system.

The Agristack digital system aims to do for agriculture what Aadhaar did for payments and ONDC for e-commerce.

Here is a lowdown on what digitising the farm sector entails and what it means for farmers as well as the government:

What is Agristack?

Agristack is one of the core components of the DPI for agriculture, besides Krishi-DSS and Soil Profile Maps.

Think of Agristack as a single data pool or a repository of all farmer information, including their identity, land records, coverage, income, insurance, loans, crop details and revenue history.

While some of this information will have to be collected from farmers, other will be integrated from government sources via APIs.

What about the data?

Agristack's data will be sourced from three main registries — the farmers registry, geo-referenced village maps and the crop sown registry.

The farmers' registry will assign a unique digital ID to each farmer, linked to their land records and Aadhaar.

States such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra are piloting these IDs, with the Centre aiming to enrol six crore farmers by the end of the current financial year.

The second source involves geo-referencing village maps and registering crops sown through a digital crop survey conducted by states.

The survey will collect data on crops sown using geo-referenced farmland maps and remote-sensing images.

Georeferencing is the process of aligning satellite imagery or other types of maps with real-world geographic coordinates.

For agriculture, it will primarily map the approximate area being tilled by a farmer using the Global Positioning System (GPS).

Advanced technologies such as GIS-GPS, AI/ML and visual analytics will provide near real-time crop information.

Satellite data will be provided by ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), offering a comprehensive view of crops sown across the country during different seasons.

How did it start?

To create Agristack, the agriculture and farmer welfare ministry in 2021 set up a task force and asked it to come out with a white paper, finalise the concept and lay down the core framework.

The task force worked on developing the architecture--India Digital Ecosystem Architecture (IDEA). Comments were invited from experts, farmers, farmer producer organisations (FPOs) and the public. It led to the idea of a Unified Farmers Service platform.

Soon after, the ministry started pilots with different state governments.

Why Agristack?

The idea of a one-stop digital shop is to avoid duplication of information and easy access to information, for government and farmers.

At present, to offer some benefits to farmers or to build something for them, one needs to get land records and IDs separately, which are with separate departments. In many cases, manual records are insufficient or inaccurate.

With the DPI, more information will be at hand for all stakeholders. Agricultural supply-chain players would be able to better plan production and logistics, farmers would know when and where to sell the produce at the best price and can also benefit from new technologies.

The government can also plan, implement and target schemes better.

Agristack can also assess the creditworthiness of borrowers and facilitate easier loan and insurance underwriting, the 2019 report of the Steering Committee on fintech-related issues said.

Which registries, platforms will be a part of Agristack?

Besides the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), FPOs, Agristack aims to integrate hosts of applications such as Govt’s e-Nam, ITC’s eChoupal and NCDEX’s NeML which give information on weather, suuply chain and warehousing, per the note by International Finance Corporation and World Bank.

Who is working on Agristack?

The ministry of agriculture and farmer welfare.

Do private companies have access to Agristack data?

Not, as of now.

Agristack is a federated structure with states owning the data, the government said in a release. Private companies don’t have access to the aggregated database but are collaborating with the government on use cases and data collection.

Companies involved include Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, ITC Limited, Ninjakart, Cisco Commerce, Jio Platforms and Star Agribazaar.

In 2022, the ministry signed an agreement with Microsoft for a pilot in 100 villages in six states. The American tech giant will use its cloud computing technologies to develop a “Unified Farmer Service Interface” according to the MoU.

Any concerns?

Agristack’s accuracy and usefulness can be hindered by outdated or incomplete land records.

Despite the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme achieving 92 percent computerisation of village land records by 2021, only 68 percent of cadastral maps (recording land area, ownership, and value) were digitised, a 2022 IndiaSpend report said.

There are concerns over the state of land records and the slow pace of updating them, as land boundaries remain a touch issue.

In India, land disputes can continue through generations. A dispute settlement mechanism for the physical verification of digitally generated data is important for the digitalisation of records.

How far has it come?

Some states have completed the pilot and have started leveraging the database to extend the benefits of certain schemes.

For instance, Uttar Pradesh’s additional chief secretary (agriculture) Devesh Chaturvedi has said that from December 2024, farmer registry would be mandatory for getting benefits the under PM Kisan Yojana.

The work on farmer registry was completed on a pilot basis in Farrukhabad district after which 20 farmers in the district and 60 in Varanasi were issued Kisan Credit Card in 30 minutes.

What does it mean for startups?

As the system gets developed, the open stack would be accessible to the private sector, including agritech startups. The dataset can be leveraged to build unique business models, reduce costs in acquiring farmers and speed up the onboarding and delivery.

This would save them the extensive fieldwork. Moreover, fintech startups have an opportunity to build more farmer-related products.