Key Takeaways:
1. Bharat-VISTAAR is an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered multilingual tool that provides information to farmers in their native language through mobile or a simple phone call. The tool offers guidance on crop planning, agricultural practices, pests, weather forecasts, markets, scheme information, eligibility, applications, and grievances. It serves as a single “digital doorway” for farmers to access required information.
2. It is a Digital Public Infrastructure initiative in agriculture that uses AI to personalise advice by integrating information from trusted sources across the Centre, state government, and cooperative systems.
3. BharatVistaar will be available 24 hours a day as a ‘digital agriculture expert’. According to officials, farmers can access information about 10 major central schemes. These schemes are: PM-KISAN, PM Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), Soil Health Card (SHC), Modified Interest Subvention Scheme, Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization, Per Drop More Crop, PM Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, PM Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan, Agriculture Infrastructure Fund, and Kisan Credit Card.
4. Presently, Bharat-VISTAAR’s chatbot is available in two languages: English and Hindi. Similarly, the voice-based AI Assistant—Bharati—will initially be available in Hindi and English. It will be available in Tamil, Bengali, Assamese and Kannada within the next three months, along with connected state government schemes.
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(Source: Google NotebookLM)
Use of AI and digital technology in agriculture
1. CROPIC: Under Collection of Real Time Observations & Photo of Crops (CROPIC), crops are photographed four to five times during their cycle, and the pictures are analysed to assess their health and potential mid-season losses.
— For the collection of field photographs, the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare has developed the CROPIC mobile app. The photographs from the field will be crowd-sourced directly from farmers. Then, they will be analysed for information including crop type, crop stage, crop damage, and its extent.
— It uses an AI-based cloud platform for photo analysis and information extraction, and a web-based dashboard for visualisation. The mobile app will be used to provide compensation or insurance to farmers.
2. Kisan e-Mitra: It is an AI-powered chatbot to help farmers in their queries on the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. It aims to enhance the efficiency and reach of the PM-KISAN scheme, while providing the farmers with “prompt, clear and accurate” responses to their queries. It supports 11 regional languages and is evolving to assist with other government programs
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3. National Pest Surveillance System (NPSS): NPSS, launched in August 2024, is an AI-based platform aimed at helping farmers connect with agriculture scientists and experts on controlling pests. It uses AI and ML to provide quick and instant solutions regarding pest attacks, crop diseases, crop damages etc. by issuing real time crop protection advisory to the farmers.
4. YES-TECH: It uses Remote Sensing Technology for yield estimation with a minimum 30 per cent weightage to technology-based yield estimates. Nine states — Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka — are implementing it.
5. WINDS: It envisages setting up Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) at the block level and Automatic Rain Gauges (ARGs) at the Panchayat level. “Under WINDS, a 5 times increase in current network density is envisaged to develop hyper-local weather data. Under the initiative, only data rental costs are payable by Central and State Governments,” according to Agricultural ministry.
6. Digital Agriculture Mission: It was approved by the Union Budget on September 2, 2024, with a budget outlay of Rs 2,817 crore for the creation of the DPI. Three major components of DPI are envisaged under the Digital Agriculture Mission: AgriStack, Krishi Decision Support System (DSS), and Soil Profile Maps.
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7. SATHI: Seed AUthentication, Traceability, and Holistic Inventory (SATHI) is a national portal envisioned and created by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of India, in partnership with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) with the vision “to build a digital ecosystem to effectively monitor the seed production and distribution chain and provide complete traceability of the seeds from the point of origin till they reach the farmer.” SATHI Phase 1 was launched by the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri. Narendra Singh Tomar, on April 19, 2023.
BEYOND THE NUGGET: What is AgriStack?
1. AgriStack was launched in 2024 as part of the Centre’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) Mission in the agriculture sector to consolidate data on a single platform.
2. The AgriStack comprises three foundational registries or databases in the agriculture sector: the Farmer Registry, Geo-referenced village maps and the Crop Sown Registry, all created and maintained by the State Governments or Union Territories.
📍Farmer Registry: Under the AgriStack, farmers are given a digital identity (Farmer ID) similar to Aadhaar, which are linked dynamically to the State’s land records, livestock ownership, crops sown, demographic details, family details, schemes and benefits availed.
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— With the creation of the farmers’ registry, a farmer would be able to access benefits and services digitally, obviating cumbersome paperwork and with little to no need to physically visit offices or service providers, said a source
📍Crop Sown Registry: The Crop Sown Registry includes details on crops planted by farmers. This is recorded through mobile-based Digital Crop Surveys on the ground each season. A pilot on the Digital Crop Survey was conducted in 11 states to develop the Crop Sown Registry in 2023-24.
📍Geo-referenced Village Maps data: The Geo-referenced Village Map Registry comprises geographic information of land records linked with their locations (latitudes and longitudes). So far, 5.4 lakh village maps have been geo-referenced out of the total 6.75 lakh villages. The target is to cover all villages by March 2027.
3. The government aims to integrate AgriStack Registries with all its major agricultural schemes and services, including Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Minimum Support Price (MSP)-based procurement, fertiliser distribution, loans, insurance, storage, and advisory services, in a phased manner.
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Post Read Question
Consider the following statements with regard to the AgriStack:
1. It is a part of the Centre’s Digital Public InfrastructureMission in the agriculture sector.
2. The foundational registries of the AgriStack includes Geo-referenced village maps.
3. Under Agristack, each farmer is issued a unique digital identity with details of their landholding and crops grown per area.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 1 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1 2, and 3
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(Sources: Bharat-VISTAAR, offering farmers crop support in their languages, goes live today, What is AgriStack, which FM Nirmala Sitharaman has termed as the ‘next UPI’?)
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(Source: Google NotebookLM)
