Digital agriculture
Topic: Land Reforms, the Green Revolution and Farm Subsidies · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Digital agriculture is the use of digital tools, such as remote sensing, artificial intelligence (AI), drones, data platforms and mobile advisories, across the whole farm value chain, from sowing to selling. It helps farmers get timely advice. It also helps the government target support and check crops without costly field visits.
Example
Under the Digital Agriculture Mission (2024), AgriStack builds a farmer registry and a digital crop survey. Kisan drones spray crops and assess crop condition. Soil Health Cards (2015) give each field a fertiliser recommendation based on its nutrients.
Don't confuse with
- Precision farming: this is narrower. It uses GPS, sensors, drones and data to apply inputs at the right place, time and quantity on the field. Digital agriculture covers the whole value chain, including registries, advisories and markets.
Related concepts
- Crop rotation
- Intercropping
- Mixed cropping
- Micro-irrigation
- Evergreen Revolution
- Second Green Revolution
- Gene Revolution
- Yield gap
- Precision farming
- Custom hiring centre