India’s digital farm database has surpassed 10.31 crore farmer IDs as the government accelerates efforts to create a comprehensive, farmer-focused digital infrastructure to enhance agricultural services and schemes.
India’s digital farm database has crossed 10.31 crore farmer IDs, according to a written reply in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ramnath Thakur, as New Delhi steps up efforts to build a more connected agricultural services network. Thakur said AgriStack is being developed as a farmer-focused digital public infrastructure intended to make delivery of services and government schemes quicker, simpler and more efficient.
The system brings together a wide set of information on individual farmers, including land records, crops and assets such as livestock and fisheries. At its core are three state- and territory-run registries: the Farmer Registry, geo-referenced village maps and the Crop Sown Registry. The government says the structure is federated, meaning data ownership remains with states and Union territories, while the centre provides the wider framework.
According to the Indian government’s Digital Agriculture Mission, approved on 2 September 2024 with an outlay of ₹2,817 crore, AgriStack is part of a larger push that also includes a Krishi Decision Support System and a comprehensive soil fertility and profile map. Government statements show that as of 5 December 2024, 29,99,306 farmer IDs had been created and the Digital Crop Survey had been carried out in 436 districts during the Kharif 2024 season.
Thakur also said the platform is being built in line with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules 2025, with farmers’ consent required for data collection and sharing. He added that information is encrypted and the security framework follows guidelines issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and CERT-In. The government is also using technology for crop insurance and yield estimation through the YES-TECH initiative, while a separate Digital General Crop Estimation System has been developed to provide more timely crop production estimates.
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