TAD NewsDesk, New Delhi: The Centre to create the first national hi-tech farmer’s database “digital agri-stack”. This would help the government and agribusinesses to keep track of the agricultural activities happening in the arena.
The digital repository will aid precise targeting of subsidies, services and policies, the officials added. Under the programme, each farmer of the country will get what is being called an FID, or a farmers’ ID, linked to land records to uniquely identify them. India has 140 million operational farm-land holdings.
The officials also said about the digitisation of the agricultural services delivery by the public and the private sector. He added,
“The data of 4.3 crore (43 million) farmers linked with land records have already been verified and the database will be unveiled shortly.”
Moreover, the official added,
“These data points will be triangulated by a software that will throw up a far more complex but illuminating picture of the rural and agricultural economy.”
Ravi Saran, the CEO of Upajak, an Indore-based farmer producer organisation commented,
“We have a longstanding problem of accurate farm-economy data. We mostly depend on periodic surveys and the agriculture census. Real-time data will connect farmers and service providers in real-time.”
There is currently no restriction on the number of fertilizers one farmer can buy. So some farmers use some portion of it and sell the other half which they don’t need.
The Centre spends approximately ₹75,000 crore annually on fertiliser subsidy. The government plans to eventually implement “cash transfers” in place of fertiliser subsidy.
Source: Hindustan Times
