Lucknow: With the Union budget announcing the launch of Bharat VISTAAR (Virtually Integrated System to Access Agricultural Resources) to integrate AgriStack portals and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) package of practices with artificial intelligence systems, the focus will be back on Uttar Pradesh, the biggest producer of food grain in the country. Official sources in the state agriculture department said that around 70% of the farmers are covered under the AgriStack scheme, which envisages dedicated IDs for farmers, enabling them to access PM-KISAN, the Kisan Credit Card, crop insurance, and other agricultural schemes.
“We aim to cover a maximum number of farmers under the AgriStack scheme in the coming days,” noted principal secretary agriculture Ravindra, adding that this will reflect in implementation of Bharat VISTAAR, a multilingual AI tool, which aims to provide customised advisory support to farmers, helping them make better decisions regarding crops, weather, and markets. Experts said that the integration of ICAR’s scientific agricultural practices with AI systems can potentially bridge the long-standing gap between research institutions and farm-level adoption. For a state like UP—characterised by varied agro-climatic zones and a predominance of small and marginal farmers—this could translate into more localised crop advisories, better input management, pest control guidance, and climate-resilient practices. A senior official said that the digitisation of crop survey (DCS) is also in the advanced stages. UP, sources said, transitioned to the DCS system, popularly known as e-Padtal, to replace traditional manual recording with real-time, tech-driven data collection. The agriculture department has conducted the survey across all 75 districts, covering over 4.5 crore plots. A senior official said that Bharat VISTAAR is expected to further boost farm productivity in UP, which already happens to be the largest producer of wheat, contributing over 30% to the national output. The agriculture sector’s contribution to UP’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) hovers around 17%. Despite record outputs, the Economic Survey 2025-26 noted that UP’s yield per hectare for rice still remains lower than the national average due to factors like unseasonal rains and heat stress. Additionally, 93% of farmers are marginal or small, with average landholdings of just 0.40 hectares, limiting their investment capacity.Likewise, the Centre’s stress on increasing farmer income by enhancing productivity and entrepreneurship, with special attention to small and marginal farmers, also attains significance in the case of UP. The reason is that more than 90% of the farmers in UP are either small or marginal, owning small landholdings, which limits income potential from traditional farming alone. As a matter of fact, the World Bank-supported projects in UP also aimed to boost crop productivity by promoting mechanisation, improved seed varieties, and digital tools.
