Indian govt to scale up digital crop survey in the current kharif season
The government plans to scale up the Digital Crop Survey to cover about 45 crore agricultural plots across 5.53 lakh villages during the current kharif season
As of the current season, 10.15 crore Farmer IDs have been created across 20 states as part of the broader farmer registration exercise
The Digital Crop Survey uses mobile-based, on-ground, geo-tagged data collection to record which crops are sown on which plots each season
The exercise forms one of the three foundational registries under the Digital Agriculture Mission's AgriStack initiative, alongside the Farmer Registry and geo-referenced village land maps
AgriStack and the Digital Agriculture Mission (DAM)
The Digital Agriculture Mission is a central sector scheme approved by the Union Cabinet in September 2024 to build a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for agriculture, popularly termed AgriStack. It rests on three interlinked registries maintained by State/UT governments: the Farmer Registry (unique digital Farmer IDs linked to land records and Aadhaar), the Crop Sown Registry (built via the seasonal Digital Crop Survey), and Geo-referenced Village Maps (satellite-based spatial land data).
Key Details
- AgriStack's Farmer Registry aims to cover roughly 11 crore farmers with a unique Farmer ID (FID), conceptually analogous to Aadhaar for agriculture
- The Crop Sown Registry is populated each season through the mobile-based Digital Crop Survey — a farmer-plot-crop-level dataset distinct from satellite-based remote-sensing crop estimation
- Target timeline for a dynamic, Records-of-Rights-synced Farmer Registry: March 2027 nationally (March 2028 for North-Eastern states)
- The 2026 Union Budget referenced AgriStack as a foundational "digital public infrastructure," drawing a comparison to UPI's role in digital payments
The scale-up of the Digital Crop Survey to 45 crore plots across 5.53 lakh villages is the operational expansion of the Crop Sown Registry component of AgriStack, moving from pilot/partial coverage toward a near-universal, season-by-season crop database.
Farmer ID and Direct Benefit Delivery
A Farmer ID is a unique digital identifier assigned to each farmer, linking their identity (via Aadhaar), landholding records, and crop data into a single verifiable profile. It is designed to be the common identity layer across multiple agricultural welfare and credit delivery systems.
Key Details
- Farmer IDs are intended to streamline delivery of PM-KISAN income support, PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana) crop insurance claims, Kisan Credit Card-based institutional credit, MSP-based procurement, and disaster relief disbursal
- Farmer ID generation has scaled from under 5 crore in 2025 to over 10 crore by mid-2026 across the majority of states, moving toward the 11-crore target
- The scheme builds on, but is distinct from, the pre-existing Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP), which digitises land ownership (Records of Rights) rather than crop/farmer identity data
The 10.15-crore Farmer ID count cited alongside the crop survey expansion reflects the parallel build-out of AgriStack's identity layer, which the Crop Sown Registry data will eventually be linked to for automated, plot-level benefit delivery.
Minimum Support Price (MSP) Mechanism and Data-Driven Procurement
MSP is the floor price at which the government commits to procure notified crops, intended to insulate farmers from distress sales during a glut. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), an attached office of the Ministry of Agriculture, recommends MSPs for notified kharif and rabi crops; the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) takes the final decision on the announced price.
Key Details
- CACP currently recommends MSPs for 22-23 crops across the kharif, rabi, and other groupings (kharif, rabi, sugarcane, jute, copra)
- Accurate, plot-level, real-time crop-sown data (of the kind the Digital Crop Survey generates) is positioned as a tool to reduce procurement leakages and better forecast production ahead of MSP-based procurement operations
- MSP-based procurement is currently concentrated in a handful of crops (notably rice and wheat) and states, a structural issue that granular crop survey data is intended to help address by improving visibility into actual cropping patterns nationwide
By digitising exactly which crop is grown on which plot at a granular, real-time level, the scaled-up Digital Crop Survey is expected to feed more accurate production estimates into the MSP procurement planning and crop insurance claim-verification process.
- Digital Crop Survey scale-up target: approximately 45 crore agricultural plots across 5.53 lakh villages this kharif season
- Farmer IDs created so far: 10.15 crore, across 20 states
- AgriStack (Digital Agriculture Mission) approved by the Union Cabinet: September 2024
- Target for national Farmer Registry completion: March 2027 (March 2028 for North-Eastern states)
- Overall Farmer ID target under AgriStack: approximately 11 crore farmers
- CACP currently recommends MSPs for 22-23 notified crops; CCEA gives final approval