AgriStack: Transforming India's Agricultural Sector
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted AgriStack as a potential game-changer for India's agricultural sector, comparing its transformative potential to that of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in the retail payment sector.
AgriStack Overview
- Objective: Develop a digital public-infrastructure network for the farm sector.
- Components: Create digital IDs for 110 million farmers, linking farmer registries, land records, and crop data.
- Goal: Simplify access to benefits and services for farmers, minimizing paperwork and physical visits.
Current Progress and Challenges
- Financial Support: Approved by the Centre in September 2024, with financial aid provided to states for farmer registries.
- Adoption: Most states and Union Territories have joined the initiative; 86.2 million farmer IDs have been created.
- Target Completion: March 2027.
- Challenges:
- 20% of farm households are tenants, complicating land ownership establishment.
- Tenant farmers, often landless, have limited access to institutional credit and government schemes.
- 60% of fertiliser usage is by those without land ownership.
Potential Benefits and Policy Shifts
- Fertiliser Subsidy: AgriStack could help control the subsidy budgeted at over ₹1.7 trillion and improve soil health.
- Case Study: Haryana's experiment linked land, fertiliser usage, and crops, achieving major savings.
- NPK Imbalance: Chronic overuse of urea has led to soil degradation and reduced productivity.
- Direct Subsidy Transfers: Potential to save ₹30,000-40,000 crore, improve transparency, and recalibrate subsidies more accurately.
