AI-powered Agristack akin to UPI revolution in India, experts say

India is about to have a UPI-like revolution in agriculture. At the India Today Group's Kisan Tak Bharat Agriculture Conference, experts claimed that AI was about to make farming more efficient in the country.

In Short

• Agristack is India’s UPI for farming, experts say
• India now has 11 crore farmer IDs
• Experts say social media is important for promoting agricultural schemes

India’s agricultural sector is having its own UPI revolution. During the India Today Group's Kisan Tak Bharat Agriculture Conference, IAS officer Dr Devesh Chaturvedi, who presided over AgriStack, said that the country was witnessing a shift in farming thanks to AI and technology.

Commenting on the use of AgriStack, a unified digital system for farmers similar to Aadhar, Chaturvedit said, “This is the next UPI type of revolution.” Agristack was launched in 2024 as part of the digital agriculture mission.

AgriStack is helping create digital records for farmers

The mission, Devesh Chaturvedi said, has three layers. “The first layer is what we call the Map Registry or Farm Registry. Every field, whichever field is defined, its field number is recorded in the Revenue Department,” he explained. This is called a farm ID.

Then there is the farmer ID. “In Farmer ID, we give a unique ID of 11 digits to a farmer, like Aadhaar,” Chaturvedit noted. “On its back end, their Aadhaar number, their mobile number, how many fields they have, if there are many farmers on one plot, then what is their share.” This helps keep track of farmers and their plots even in cases where a single field is shared by multiple farmers.

A farmer can give their consent to show their farmer ID information to other farmers.

Moving beyond the IDs, AgriStack also focuses on digital surveys of crops. Devesh Chaturvedi explained that this will ensure that a surveyor is at the location for the survey.”Until the surveyor does not reach the field, he cannot do the survey,” he said. “When they reach the field, the app will open. Then they will take a photo and tell us what has been planted. The second is that if we want to do it with a satellite, then it has become easier.”

According to Devesh Chaturvedi, the government of India now has 11 crore farmer IDs with 30 crore plots having been digitally surveyed.

Agristack is then used together with Bharat Vista, an AI platform launched by the union government. “In Bharat Vista, a farmer tells that he is a resident of this place, so the AI can tell the weather in a week or rate of a crop,” Chaturvedi added. “Now, when we have linked this AI platform with Agristec, we already know where the farmer's land is, what he has grown, what his agro-climatic zone, and his soil health condition. Now, we can tell them to give water at this time.”

Nishant Warwade, Secretary of Agriculture, Madhya Pradesh government, pointed out that the state was seeing benefits of this digital system already. “We are a 100 per cent farmer ID compliant state. We are a 100 per cent geo-reference compliant state,” Warwade said. The MP government secretary said that all state schemes were now digitised.

Roli Jindal, co-Founder and CEO of RSMI Cropalytics, claimed that mapping of fields and digitisation in agriculture had three benefits – speed, scale, and accuracy. “In a field, if there is a crop of Rs 4 lakhs, then its monitoring cost cannot be Rs 40,000. Its monitoring cost has to be Rs 40 or proportionate, right?,” she said.

The timing and accuracy was also important. “If in any corner of the country, if a crop falls on a farmer, then the decision makers will come to know after 2 months,” Jindal said. Roli Jindal said that data had made systems far more accurate today. Now, machines can understand the conditions of a field based on its georeference data.

The need for social media

While the government is bringing advanced tools to agriculture, there is a need for a mechanism to keep farmers informed. Social media influencer Pargat Singh said that social media platforms and influencers can become this bridge. “An agricultural influencer is such a link through which this information can go on a large scale in a very short time,” he said. An influencer can inform farmers about “a crop, farming practices, policies, or advisories.”

Nishant Warwade concurred. Wawarde claimed that the Madhya Pradesh government had already embraced social media. “We have created digital influencer teams in our own PRO department that make 4-5 flyers every day, using AI tools,” he explained. The agriculture secretary said that the content was created by youngsters who were well versed with social media and tech.

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