National Farmers Database

Why in news?

• The Centre has created a National Farmers Database with records of 5.5 crore farmers, which it hopes to increase to 8 crore farmers by December by linking it to State land record databases.

About National Farmers Database:

• The Central government had proposed an Agristack initiative to create a digital database that focuses on farmers and the agricultural sector.
• As part of the first step of this initiative, the government has initiated a farmers database that would serve as the core of the Agristack.
• The database would be linked to the digital land record management system and would thus only include farmers who were legal owners of agricultural land.
• The database would facilitate online single sign-on facilities for universal access and usher in proactive and personalized services to farmers such as DBT, soil and plant health advisories, weather advisories
• It would also facilitate seamless credit & insurance, seeds, fertilizers, and pesticide-related information.

About AgriStack:

• It is a collection of technologies and digital databases that focuses on farmers and the agricultural sector.
• AgriStack will create a unified platform for farmers to provide them end to end services across the agriculture food value chain.
• Under the programme, each farmer of the country will get what is being called an FID, or a farmers’ ID, linked to land records to uniquely identify them.
• Under the programme database will be created from particularly three schemes: PM-KISAN (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi), Soil Health Card and PM Fasal Bima Yojna (crop insurance scheme). The data from these three schemes will be compiled and compared with land records data.
• It is in line with the Centre’s Digital India programme, aimed at providing a broader push to digitise data in India, from land titles to medical records.

PRACTICE QUESTION

Which of the following statements are correct regarding ‘Agristack’ initiative?

1. The database contains the data of the farmers who own legal farming lands in the country.

2. The data from Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, Soil Health Card and PM Fasal Bima Yojana are used to create farmer’s database under this initiative.

3. The initiative will aid in better targeting of subsidies.

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 and 3 only

(b) 2 and 3 only

(c) 1 and 2 only

(d) 1, 2 and 3

Answer