The government has launched a pilot Digital Crops Survey (DCS) across 12 states starting from the kharif season of 2023. This initiative aims to establish a single, verified source for crop sowing data.
In response to a Rajya Sabha inquiry about enhancing the farm statistics system with regular digital crop surveys, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Ramnath Thakur, highlighted recent measures such as the DCS and the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES). These efforts are designed to modernize area enumeration and yield estimation, providing more accurate crop production estimates.
Thakur noted that DCS data is instrumental for precise crop area estimation and developing farmer-centric solutions. The survey utilizes the DCS reference application, which is open-source and integrates technologies like geo-referenced cadastral maps, Geographic Information System (GIS), and Global Positioning System (GPS) to accurately pinpoint farmland locations.
The DGCES employs a detailed survey methodology based on crop cutting experiments (CCEs). The introduction of the GCES mobile application and portal has revolutionized the recording of CCE results directly from the field. Features such as GPS-enabled photo capture and automated plot selection enhance both transparency and accuracy within the system.
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