Hold digital crop survey from July 2024, Centre tells states

HIGHLIGHTING THAT the presentsystemof estimationof crop area and production is “completelymanual”, resultingin“delay” and “manual errors”, the Centre has asked states and UTS to digitise the process by adopting the Digital Crop Survey system from July next year.

According to sources, the Economics, Statistics and Evaluation Division (ESED), whichcomesundertheministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, hasfinalisedtheguidelinescomingupwithagricultural production estimates, and has sharedthemwithstatesanduts.

“All states/ UTS shall automate/digitisetheprocessofarea enumeration/girdawariofcrops at field level, i.e. Digital Crop Survey, from 2024-25 Agriculturalyear,” theguidelines said. Inindia, theagricultureyear begins in July and ends in June, the following year.

Under the guidelines, states and UTS “shall use GPS enabled mobileapplicationforcollecting crop sown data of each plot for eachseasonandsharethevillage level aggregated data with DA&FW (Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare) through API only.”

Accordingtotheministry, currently, the collection and compilation of crop statistics is “completely manual” except in a few states, resulting in “delay” and “manual errors”. “Only a few of the states like Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh haveestablishedadigitaldatacollectionsystemintheformofgpsenabled mobile applications for cropareaandccesdatacollection directlyfromthefield. Stateslike Maharashtra and Madhya Pradeshhavealsodevelopedsuch digital systems but only for crop arearecording,” asourcesaid.

“A need was felt to reform the existing production estimation system through the use of technological intervention,” the source added.

Questions have been raised about agricultural production data under the existing system, with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman saying in September that India “suffers” for want of reliable agricultural productionestimatesandstressing on the need for “a real time assessment estimate” of crops.

Under the guidelines issued by ESED, states must develop a digitalapplicationfor“recording weeklysowingprogress, andthe same is to be shared with Da&fwthroughapionaweekly basis”.

As part of the Digital Crop Survey, the ministry has asked states to collect information on “basic parameters”, including village name, year, season, farmerid, farmid, cropname(at farm plot level), crop variety, crop sown area (at farm plot level), geotagsofcropphotosand farm boundary where the crop is sown.