The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare detailed its comprehensive approach to advancing agricultural technology through multiple schemes and initiatives aimed at enhancing productivity, improving resource-use efficiency, and promoting climate-resilient farming practices.
Technology Integration and Mechanization
The Department is promoting agricultural mechanization through the Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM), implemented as part of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme 'Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY)'. Financial assistance is provided to farmers for purchasing agricultural machinery and equipment, establishing Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs), High-Tech Hubs, and Farm Machinery Banks (FMBs). The program also supports demonstration, training, testing, and capacity building activities, enabling small and marginal farmers to access modern farm machinery at affordable rates. Drone technology is specifically promoted through financial assistance for procurement and demonstrations under SMAM, utilized for pesticide and nutrient application and generating digital agricultural data.
Digital Agriculture Initiatives
The Digital Agriculture Mission is being implemented to promote precision agriculture and digital technologies through digital public infrastructure, technology-based farmer-centric services, and data-driven decision support systems. The Farmer Registry created under AgriStack serves as a foundational database for efficient, transparent, and targeted delivery of agricultural services and benefits, with integration planned for PM-KISAN, Jan Samarth platform for Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans, and MSP-based crop procurement systems. As of 06.08.2026, over 10.33 crore farmer IDs have been generated.
The Digital Crop Survey digitally captures crops grown on every farmland with photos and geo-tags, providing plot-level visibility and supporting better area estimation across seasons. This enables evidence-based planning for production estimation, procurement, input supply, and logistics management. In Kharif 2025, the survey covered 604 districts and more than 28.5 crore plots.
BharatVistaar (Virtually Integrated System to Access Agricultural Resources) is a multilingual AI-powered Digital Public Infrastructure platform that provides farmers with real-time, location-specific agricultural advisories and access to government schemes and support services. The platform has served over 5.9 lakh farmers and addressed more than 93 lakh farmer queries.
Research and Horticulture Focus
Research, design, development, testing, and refinement of agricultural machinery are conducted through ICAR, State Agricultural Universities, and other research organizations, which have developed location-specific and crop-specific machinery suitable for diverse agro-climatic conditions and farm sizes. For horticultural crops, mechanization of harvesting is promoted through the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), which provides financial assistance to States/UTs for adopting improved tools, implements, and machinery. ICAR and its institutes undertake R&D to develop, refine, and evaluate appropriate mechanization technologies for horticultural crops, considering variations in crop characteristics, plant architecture, fruit maturity, and farm sizes.
Multidisciplinary Approach
Agriculture has evolved into a multidisciplinary field integrating engineering, computing, robotics, Machine Learning, AI, IoT, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), GIS, remote sensing, and data analytics. This integration has accelerated the development of intelligent farm machinery, autonomous equipment, precision farming systems, protected cultivation technologies, and smart farm management solutions. The government continues to promote innovation, research, technology development, skill development, entrepreneurship, and adoption of modern agricultural technologies through various schemes to enhance productivity, improve resource-use efficiency, strengthen sustainability, and make Indian agriculture more resilient and competitive.