Monday, 16 June 2025
Maharashtra, Kerala, Bihar, and Odisha, and the PSB Alliance inked MoU with the National Farmers’ Welfare Program Implementation Society (NFWPIS), MoA&FW to enable seamless digital access to credit services through Farmer Registry-linked authentication.
The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare (MoA&FW) organized the National Conference on Agri Stack: Turning Data into Delivery at Sushma Swaraj Bhawan, New Delhi. The conference served as a strategic platform for senior officials from the Centre and States key stakeholders to deliberate on the progress, challenges, and future roadmap for the implementation of Agri Stack under the Digital Agriculture Mission (DAM).
A major milestone of the conference was the signing of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the States of Maharashtra, Kerala, Bihar, and Odisha, and the PSB Alliance with the National Farmers’ Welfare Program Implementation Society (NFWPIS), MoA&FW. This collaboration will enable seamless digital access to credit services through Farmer Registry-linked authentication, reducing paperwork and benefiting small and marginal farmers across India. Additionally, the Special Central Assistance (SCA) Guidelines were jointly launched by Secretaries of Agriculture and Land Resources, Chief knowledge Officer and Advisor (CKO&A), Add. Secretary (MoA&FW) in the presence of other dignitaries. A total allocation of Rs 6,000 crore was announced to support States— Rs 4,000 crore earmarked for Farmer Registry (including legal heir systems), and Rs 2,000 crore for Digital Crop Survey, on a first-come-first-served basis.
The conference began with a welcome address by Devesh Chaturvedi, Secretary (Agriculture), who reiterated the government’s commitment to leveraging technology for transparent, farmer-centric governance. He highlighted the urgent need for States to dynamically link their Farmer Registries with updated Records of Rights (RoR) and actively utilize the digital datasets for scheme delivery and personalized agricultural services. In his keynote, the Secretary, Department of Land Resources (DoLR), emphasized the foundational role of digital land records and Aadhaar seeding for accurate farmer identification, noting the challenges of declining land value and income in rural areas.
Pramod Kumar Meherda, Additional Secretary (Digital), MoA&FW, provided a comprehensive overview of Agri Stack, including integration of the Farmer ID with flagship schemes such as PM-KISAN, PMFBY, KCC etc. The conference also witnessed the introduction of upcoming services such as farmer authorization systems and Digitally Verifiable Certificates (DVCs), empowering farmers to share land and crop information securely and selectively.
The Ministry also showcased an AI-powered chatbot, trained on Agri Stack data and built using Google Gemini, capable of answering queries in multiple languages. Additional AI tools are being piloted for assisting supervisors in crop identification, performing facial authentication of surveyors, and optimizing backend code in partnership with system integrators.
