Digital Agriculture Mission: Centre asks states to make farmer IDs faster

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (MoA&FW) has instructed states to organise camps to expedite the issuance of digital identities for farmers (Farmer ID), also referred to as ‘Kisan Pehchaan Patra’, as reported by The Indian Express. This Aadhaar-linked digital identity integrates with state land records, encompassing essential details such as demographic information, crop patterns, and ownership data.

 

The Farmer ID will form the core of the ‘Farmers’ Registry’, one of the three registries under the ‘Agri Stack’ initiative, part of the Centre’s Digital Agriculture Mission. This mission, approved by the Union Cabinet earlier this year, aims to develop digital public infrastructure in the agricultural sector.

 

 

What is farmer ID or ‘Kisan Pehchaan Patra’?

 

The project has been approved with a total budget of Rs 2,817 crore, with the Central Government contributing approximately Rs 1,940 crore. The Farmer Identification Card is a digital identity card for farmers, similar to Aadhaar.  The card will be used for monitoring farmers and will provide the government with various types of information about them, such as:

- The amount of land owned by the farmer  

- The number of livestock they own  

- The type of crops they have cultivated  

 

With the help of this card, farmers can avail of facilities like crop insurance and crop loans. The card will also provide information about village land maps and the crops sown. This initiative by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare is part of the Digital Agriculture Mission. Under this scheme, a significant step will be taken towards digitising the agriculture sector.  

 

Govt’s target with farmers’ digital identities

The government has set an ambitious target to generate digital identities for 11 crore farmers:  

- 60 million farmers in FY2024-25  

- 30 million crore farmers in FY2025-26  

- two million farmers in FY2026-27  

 

To meet this goal, the Centre has advised states to adopt a ‘camp-mode approach’ to facilitate inclusive, efficient, and rapid farmer registration. A communication to this effect was issued to states on November 28.  

 

Incentives by centre to states 

To incentivise states, the Centre will provide up to Rs 15,000 per camp organised at the field level, along with an additional Rs 10 per Farmer ID generated. These incentives will be funded through the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) scheme.  

 

The initiative has already gained momentum in states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. In contrast, states such as Assam, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha are still conducting field tests, with others at varying stages of implementation. 

 

Additionally, these incentives complement the ‘Special Assistance Scheme’ announced by the Finance Ministry, which allocated Rs 5,000 crore in August 2024 for creating the Farmers’ Registry under the Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment 2024-25. States can access this fund until March 2025.