Recognising the need of a standardised farmer database, the government launched Digital Agriculture Mission in 2024, with strong Centre-State collaboration. The Agri Stack is emerging as a quiet but powerful transformative pillar of this mission. It comprises of three registries — farm , farmer and crop sown. Agri Stack signals a new chapter in India’s agricultural journey.
Farm registry comprises database of geo-referenced agriculture plots. In the second layer, each land owning farmer is being provided with a unique farmer ID with essential information related to all plots owned along with the share in case of co-ownership. The data is dynamically linked to the Record of Rights so that any change in ownership due to inheritance, sale etc gets updated in the farmer registry. The third layer comprises of details of crop sown on each plot, obtained through a Digital/Technologically driven crop survey conducted in each crop season after the sowing is completed.
Agri Stack is a federated database enabling rule-based, automated service delivery across schemes and geographies with strict adherence to provisions of Privacy and Data Protection related laws.
Inclusive ecosystem
Recognising the diversity in land administration across the country, the architecture has an inbuilt flexibility to tailor it to the local needs.
In States where land records have not been updated for decades and name of forefathers continue, successor farmers cultivating land can have their farmer ID generated, after verification by revenue department, ensuring continuity of benefits. Wherever, laws permit and States agree, sharecroppers and tenant farmers can also be onboarded for availing specific scheme benefits, with robust owner-authorisation mechanisms. In the North-Eastern States, where community ownership dominates, geo-coordinate-based certification allows inclusion without disrupting customary practices.
A key milestone in this journey has been the creation of more than 9.40 crore farmer IDs till date. In 2025-26, 24 States conducted the digital crop survey in nearly 30 crore plots across more than 600 districts using mobile devices, geotagging and satellite support.
This marks a significant departure from traditional survey methods that were often slow and prone to inconsistencies/errors.
Benefitting farmers
It is a transformation from paper based records to digitised systems. it acts as a single source of truth, enabling farmers to access multiple services without need of repeated verification, reducing the transaction costs. It helps in seamless identification of eligible beneficiaries and targeting benefits to the intended recipients.
Land data integrated with crops sown and soil health has the potential to unleash a transformation in agriculture extension as now tailored advisories can be designed and disseminated at very low cost. Farmers can receive personalised guidance on optimal sowing times, irrigation schedules, nutrient application and pest management based on local conditions.
Agri Stack fosters evidence based data driven policy making due to availability of accurate and timely data to track cropping patterns, anticipate supply-demand gaps and intervene in a timely manner to prevent price volatility.
Central and State Ministries, have developed their own farmer databases for scheme implementation. Agri Stack breaks such self-created silos by providing a common but universal digital layer allowing various systems to work using the same verified data.
Several States have gone ahead to successfully implement use cases of Agri Stack. Uttar Pradesh is using Agri Stack for MSP based procurement. Chhattisgarh used the Agri Stack to seamlessly register farmers for MSP based paddy procurement during last kharif. Madhya Pradesh used the database for its Price Deficiency based support to soybean farmers under PM ASHA. Maharashtra is using Agri Stack for all its DBT based benefits including Disaster Relief. As the Stack matures, there are opportunities for start-ups to build applications that combine crop data, weather forecasts and market prices into user-friendly tools.
The Finance Minister in her recent public discourses highlighted Agri Stack as “next big thing from India” and “Next UPI like revolution”.
Agri Stack is a forward-looking reform, which through collaboration is empowering farmers and strengthening governance.
The writer is Former Secretary (Agriculture), Government of India
Published on May 15, 2026