Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 25 asked stakeholders, corporate leaders, and policymakers to start bringing in the changes required to make India’s agriculture sector "modern and smart." He was speaking at a webinar on 'Smart Agriculture,' which focused on the ways that the Union Budget 2022 helped the sector.

He pointed out the “seven ways” in which farming in India can be transformed, based on the Union Budget. These include the adoption of natural farming, use of emerging technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and drones, reducing the import of edible oils, logistic improvements for transportation of farm products, agri-waste management, great financial inclusion to farmers, and investments into agri-research and education.

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Here’s how India stands on some of these channels of improvement:

India already has several initiatives that promote organic and natural farming across the country. PM Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) provides insurance on naturally grown crops, while Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) and National Project on Organic Farming schemes also promote the adoption of organic farming in India’s agriculture sector.

The National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm (NMOOP) seeks to reduce India’s dependence on imported edible oils, which supports the growing of oil palm and the extraction of food oil from tree borne oilseeds (TBOs), like sal, mahua, simarouba, kokum, olive, and others that are already grown and found in India.

The Kisan Rath mobile application, developed by the Government of India, is aimed at providing farmers with vehicles for transportation of agri-produce and is available in several languages.

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The Kisan Rails Services, that are being operated by the Indian Railways, has also proven to be a benefit towards logistical support to farmers. The establishment of Perishable Cargo Centres at Nashik, Singur, New Azadpur, Raja Ka Talab/Varanasi, Ghazipur and Fatuha, and cold storage Reefer Park at Inland Container Depot, Dadri, and a cold storage facility at Rai, Sonipat have also helped in terms of keeping agri-produce from perishing in transit.

These systems were integrated with India’s air transport system with the changes in the National Civil Aviation Policy 2016, the National Air Cargo Policy Outline 2019, and the Krishi Udaan Scheme.

Investments in local development and research into emerging technologies like drones through PLIs and Drone Rules 2021, have also been introduced. Additionally, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), NASSCOM and Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) have all introduced policy-level initiatives to encourage the use of AI in various capacities in India.

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The establishment of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), and a partnership with Microsoft over the use of the AI-Sowing App powered by Cortana Intelligence Suite for farmers are some of these initiatives.

The move to open up all 1.5 lakh post offices to have core banking system services available will also provide greater financial inclusion to millions of farmers while several other state and national level schemes also work on improving the same.

The Programme on Energy from Urban, Industrial, Agricultural Wastes/ Residues and Municipal Solid Waste from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy seeks to use agri-waste to set up electrical generation capabilities to reduce the dependence on imported fuel as well as find a use for agri-waste in the country.

These are just some of the ways that India is already working on to make agriculture modern and smart to keep up with the food demands that the country is going to see over the next few decades.

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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)