India builds massive digital backbone for Agriculture with 7.63 crore farmer IDs

New Delhi: India has created a large-scale digital foundation for agriculture with over 7.63 crore farmer IDs and 23.5 crore crop plots surveyed under the Digital Agriculture Mission, an official statement said on Saturday. 

AI Tools Power Pest Surveillance, Monsoon Forecasts and Crop Insurance

According to the statement, the National Pest Surveillance System supports 66 crops and over 432 pest types, providing real-time advisories to more than 10,000 extension workers for early pest detection.

“As of December 2025, the Kisan e-Mitra chatbot has answered more than 93 lakh queries, handling over 8,000 farmer queries daily in 11 regional languages,” said the government. 

An AI-based pilot for local monsoon onset forecasting for Kharif 2025 reached 3.88 crore farmers across 13 states via SMS, with 31–52 per cent of surveyed farmers adjusting sowing and land preparation decisions based on the forecasts.

Moreover, YES-TECH, CROPIC, and the PMFBY WhatsApp Chatbot are leveraging AI-enabled tools to make crop insurance under PMFBY more innovative, faster, and more transparent for farmers.

Budget 2026–27 Proposes Bharat-VISTAAR Multilingual AI Platform

Notably, the Union Budget 2026-27 proposed Bharat-VISTAAR, a multilingual AI tool to integrate the AgriStack portals and the ICAR package with AI system.

The statement further stated that the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 highlights India’s approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool for inclusive development. 

AgriStack is a core component of the Digital Agriculture Mission, providing farmers with a unique digital identity (Farmer ID) linked to land records, livestock ownership, crops cultivated, and benefits availed, enabling secure identification and access to agricultural services. 

To accelerate creation and verification, Rs 10 per Farmer ID has been earmarked from PM-KISAN administrative funds. AgriStack also supports a mobile-based Digital Crop Survey that captures real-time, plot-level data on crop type and area under cultivation. 

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) was launched to safeguard farmers against crop losses arising from unforeseen events by offering affordable crop insurance through low, fixed premium rates. 

Farmers contribute only 2 per cent for Kharif food and oilseed crops, 1.5 per cent for Rabi food and oilseed crops, and 5 per cent for commercial and horticultural crops, with the remaining premium subsidised by the government. 

(IANS)