New Delhi: Agriculture Secretary Devesh Chaturvedi called on states to promptly embrace and implement new technology-driven initiatives aimed at enhancing farm production estimates and improving data accuracy on Thursday. Speaking at a national conference, Chaturvedi emphasised the importance of ongoing collaboration between the Central and state governments to raise the quality of agricultural statistics, according to an official statement.
The new initiatives include the Digital Crop Survey, Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), and the updated FASAL (Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space, Agro-meteorology, and Land-based Observations) programme.
The Digital Crop Survey is designed to provide plot-level data with geotagged crop areas, serving as a single source of truth for accurate crop area estimation. DGCES aims to calculate yield through scientifically designed Crop Cutting Experiments for all major crops nationwide. The revamped FASAL programme utilises remote sensing technology to generate accurate crop maps and area estimates for 10 major crops.
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The conference also spotlighted the UPAg Portal, which facilitates the cross-verification of data from multiple sources, ensuring robust agricultural statistics. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India, these initiatives are expected to deliver near real-time and reliable data directly from the field, allowing for more precise farm production estimates.
The agriculture department is working with various institutions, including the Space Application Centre and the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), to develop yield forecast models. Additionally, the department is collaborating with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to enhance the supervision of crop-cutting experiments by the National Sample Survey Office.
The conference concluded with a consensus on the significance of these reforms and a commitment from all states to reinforce the agricultural statistical framework. Officials underscored that adopting digital surveys and advanced technologies will lead to more efficient data collection, reduce discrepancies, and ultimately support better policy-making in the agricultural sector.
