India advances digital agriculture mission with over 84M farmer IDs generated

India’s Digital Agriculture Mission is said to be on good footing with more than 8.48 crore (84.8 million) farmer IDs already generated, as of February 4, to streamline access to agricultural inputs, benefits and other important resources.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare disclosed this information in a recent statement, which also detailed how AI-powered systems are helping farmers, for instance, by providing real-time advisories for pest detention, and answering farmer queries in several languages, among other support.

India’s digital agriculture mission, launched in September 2024, was meant to build and scale the “AgriStack” as a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), with the purpose of creating a single source of truth for the identification of farmers, ensuring proper land records, and maintaining accurate crop data. The initiative also allows for advanced AI systems integration into several agricultural processes to improve yield and boost sustainability.

According to the statement which outlines the outcomes and progress of the country’s digital agriculture initiatives following an evaluation of 2025, the move has facilitated the management of direct benefit transfer schemes for farmers, facilitated procurement and credit access, as well as disaster relief efforts.

The State of Maharashtra is cited as one success story of AgriStack deployment where the government transferred more than 14,000 crore rupees (US$1.54 billion) to 89 lakh (8.9 million) farmers with Aadhaar-linked bank accounts for Kharif 2025 crop losses, and also deployed AI-based advisory and credit access support. The state has compulsorily required a farmer ID for access to government subsidies since April 2025.

Another State, Chhattisgarh, is also cited as having used the farmer ID and digital crop survey tools to enable paddy procurement for an estimated 32 lakh (3.2 million) farmers. The stack helps improve transparency, beneficiary verification and payment timeliness.

Among other things, the digital agriculture mission has seen the deployment of Krishi decision support systems via GIS for satellite imagery and evidence-based agricultural planning, the Kisan e-Mitra AI chatbot which addresses an average 8,000 queries a day in eleven regional languages, a pest surveillance system used by 10,000 extension workers for early pest infestation detection, a drone scheme that distributes crops to women for higher efficiency and reduced operational costs, as well as the SATHI digital platform for end-to-end seed management.

Per the Indian government, these initiatives under the digital agriculture umbrella generally aim to double farmers’ income, enhance food security by better addressing climate risks, position India’s agriculture for global competitiveness and ensure that no farmer is left behind in the country’s digital transition.

The government says it plans to issues over 100 million farmer IDs by 2026-2027 fiscal year, and states are being pressed to expedite issuance.

Meanwhile, in a related development, Delhi has announced plans to introduce a digital land management system.  India Times reports that the idea is to make sure each parcel of land in the metropolis is assigned a 14-digit Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN) which will be vital in streamlining land records.

Article Topics

AgriStack  |  digital ID  |  digital public infrastructure  |  farmer ID  |  India  |  land registry