On the cards: AI-backed digital crop survey to bolster farm statistics

Though technology has vastly improved data related to agriculture, Indian policymakers are planning to improve accuracy of farm statistics system by conducting digital crop surveys at regular intervals to gauge acreage with an eye to improve the quality of data that would lead to better prediction of agri output, The Economic Times has reported. The method, if implemented, can have far-reaching consequences such as better and timely trade policy and would help the government avoid knee-jerk reaction to tame inflation which often causes trade disruptions and puts the country ill at ease in the international community.

“If all goes well, it (digital survey) could be rolled out big time from next summer,” a bureaucrat, who preferred anonymity, told the newspaper.

Though economists have been emphasising the need for more reliable farm output data for long, it was acutely felt in 2022, when bumper harvest was predicted but arrivals in mandis dropped forcing the government to abruptly ban wheat exports within days of promising to feed the world.

The deployment of new-age tech would mark a departure from the traditional practice of local officials conducting field surveys and providing inputs of sowing data. These often have marked divergence from the ground situation. Officials say that a mobile application of the digital crop survey and attendant applications might be deployed by state-level nodal officials to generate accurate sowing data. To analyse the generated data, most modern data analytic tools would be deployed to construct and deconstruct data on various metrics to help faster and accurate decision-making.

Agriculture officials also said that the ministry is working on improving crop health monitoring systems. In 2023, the government launched a digital crop survey in a dozen states as a pilot. The results have encouraged the administration to scale up the initiative. Now it will be expanded to cover more states beyond the pilot ones that included Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Odisha, Assam and Gujarat.

Pronab Sen, former chairman of the National Statistical Commission, said, “Gathering accurate crop sowing data is crucial to building a robust farm statistics system. The planned new system will help but it will take some time,” said former chairman of the National Statistical Commission, Pronab Sen.