In big push for agriculture digitalisation, govt creates database with 5.5 crore farmers
The unified database will have information about benefits of various central and state government schemes, and can be used to access information for providing benefits to farmers in the future.
By Mohit Sharma: The government has created a database of 5.5 crore farmers, with the idea of extending the central schemes to them. Once the record compilation exercise is complete, the government plans to issue a 12-digit unique ID to each farmer.
According to officials in the agriculture ministry, the unified database for all farmers will have information of all benefits and supports of various schemes of central and state governments, and this can be the source for accessing information for providing benefits to farmers in the future.
The latest initiative of the central government has been once again kick-started after initial hiccups due to Covid-19. The digital agriculture mission has been initiated for 2021-2025 for projects based on new technologies like artificial intelligence, block chain, remote sensing and GIS technology, use of drones and robots, among others.
According to ministry officials, recognising the importance of digitization in agriculture, the department is creating a federated Farmers Database and building different services around this database so as to build digital ecosystems of agriculture. The federated farmers’ database will be linked by the land records of farmers from across the country and unique Farmer IDs will be created.
Meanwhile, in line with the same, the Centre also signed multiple MOUs for pilot projects with CISCO, Ninjacart, Jio Platforms Ltd, ITC Ltd and NCDEX e-Markets Ltd (NeML).
Based on these pilot projects, farmers will be able to take informed decisions on what crop to grow, what variety of seed to use and what best practises to adopt to maximise the yield. The agricultural supply chain players can plan their procurement and logistics on precise and timely information.
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