Digital Farming – A New Era of Indian Agriculture

Abstract

In agriculture, India is a land of contradictions. The country is the host to the world’s largest number of malnourished people. Agriculture provides livelihoods for about half of the Indian population, most of who are small holder farmers, yet a majority of government agricultural subsidies are used by medium- and large-scale farmers. Parallel to India’s tremendous successes in the modernization of agriculture, small holder farmers have been marginalized. The average debt of a single farming household has been risen five fold in a decade, while increases in farm incomes have not kept up, and more than 3,00,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1995. Given the complexity of Indian agriculture, no single policy change or technology shift will move the country toward its dual goals of raising income for small holder farmers and continuing to strengthen the competitiveness of Indian agriculture, but the digital transformation of agriculture occurring worldwide holds some promise for progress.