(GIST OF YOJANA) Empowering the Farmers

GIST OF YOJANA : Empowering the Farmers

AUGUST-2025

Empowering the Farmers

Context:

Agriculture Indian economy. Although its contribution to the country’s Gross Value Added (GVA) is around 18 per cent, its contribution to the workforce is 46 per cent. In the last decade, the agriculture sector has made a rapid stride, with the robust growth averaging 5 per cent (Source: Economic Survey 2024).

Farmers' Income Security Multi-Pronged Strategy

Increasing production/productivity.
Reducing cost of cultivation.
Ensuring that farmers get the best price for their produce.
Post-harvest value addition
Diversification to higher-value crops
Product differentiation to exotic/high value varieties
Risk mitigation through crop insurance and climate-smart agriculture
Adoption of technology, including Digital Public Infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence.

Role of Government:

The ICAR is an apex body of the Government, which undertakes agricultural research. They release the latest high-yielding and hybrid seed varieties, which not only increase productivity but also have qualities of climate resilience and biofortification.
With the active collaboration between the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, ICAR, State Governments and the State Universities, there has been a concerted attempt to take these latest seed varieties to the farmers expeditiously.
This has resulted in an increase in productivity and overall production of crops. This strategy has been embedded in the important missions of the government including the National Food & Nutrition Security Mission and National Mission on Edible Oil.
FPOs have also diversified their activities and have engaged in organic farming, MSP-based procurement and production of certified seeds. State Governments have also encouraged these farmer collectives by giving seed, fertiliser and pesticide input retail licences on priority.
Similarly, FPOs involved in value addition are being facilitated to obtain FSSA1 and GST license to expand their business. There have been a number of success stories wherein cluster-based farming and organising the farmers into FPO have resulted in a manifold increase in farmers income.
The government provides multiple services to the farmers, which include crop loans, MSP- based procurement, subsidised/free seeds, crop insurance, etc. For availing each such service, one of the prerequisites is authentic information regarding the landholding and crops sown by the farmers.
This data was available in a very segregated (often not digitalised) manner, and therefore, a farmer has to visit the concerned revenue authorities to get the credentials verified every time the services are to be availed.

With an objective to empower the farmer, the Government of India has launched a Digital Agriculture Mission. The soul of the mission is the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) or the Agri Stack, which has three layers or registries:

The geo-reference plots registry linked to owners.
The farmer registry including the farmer ID of all land-owning farmers.
Digital crop survey of all agriculture georeferenced plots.

Digital Crop Survey

The Digital Crop Survey ensures the authentic, error-free survey of land plots for the crop sown.
The crop survey is based on a mobile application wherein the surveyor has to be physically present within the georeferenced plot to record the crop which has been sown and also upload the photograph as evidence.
The crop survey is undertaken immediately after the sowing and helps in getting accurate data on the area coverage of various crops in the country.
This data will also be available digitally to the farmers along with its link with the farmer ID for its use in various services.

Digital Public Infrastructure

DPI opens multiple opportunities of use cases for farmer's welfare. With land and sowing-related details available digitally, financial institutions are approving crop loans through the Kisan Credit Card without any need for verification of credentials.
Similarly, when farmers register for MSP-based procurement, the procuring agency will not need any verification of the extent of land and crops grown from any third agency, as it is readily available digitally and accessed through the farmer ID.
Since the database is Aadhaar-sceded, the biometric-based verification of the beneficiary while providing kind subsidy and Aadhaar payment gateway for disbursing cash benefits will ensure that the scheme benefits reach the targeted beneficiary efficiently and transparently.
The DPI also opens the possibility of targeted and precise extension or advisory services. With the location of the plot, the crop sown information available digitally, the precise weather-related information, and crop-specific advisories related to pests, diseases, the latest seed varieties, and prevailing market prices can be provided in a timely and efficient manner. This will empower the farmer to take informed decisions related to crops from sowing to marketing.
The government is also committed to empowering the farmers to ensure that they ascertain that the seeds being procured by them are of requisite quality. The SATHI (Seed Authentication, Traceability, and Holistic Inventory] portal, launched recently aims to ensure traceability of seeds from breeder to retail level.
The first phase of the project has been launched to establish this traceability from breeder to certified seeds.
The second phase aims to expand the system to retail shop level, wherein the farmer will be able to scan the QR code and obtain complete details of the source of the breeder, foundation, producer of certified seed, agency that has certified the seed, etc.
This will enable complete transparency, empower the farmers to have quality seeds and also strengthen enforcement.

Conclusion:

Digitisation, artificial intelligence, and precision technologies are increasingly being applied in the sector to improve services, empowering the farmers to take informed and timely decisions for the entire cropping cycle and raise their incomes while contributing to food and nutritional security, while ensuring sustainable agriculture.