VISTAAR Revolutionizes Agriculture: AI-Enabled Solutions for Farmer Advisory Services

Project VISTAAR (Virtually Integrated System To Access Agricultural Resources) aims to develop a unified, federated digital ecosystem for agriculture by integrating reliable, validated and up-to-date resources across platforms. It focuses on enhancing scalability, accessibility and inclusivity of digital solutions while enabling two-way communication to incorporate farmer feedback. By driving center-state convergence, fostering partnerships with stakeholders and aligning with broader efforts of ICAR Institutes and State Agricultural Universities. VISTAAR supports the development of robust Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for agricultural extension. Its goal is to empower farmers with actionable information, streamline collaboration and ensure the long-term sustainability of digital agricultural extension initiatives.

Digitalization of the existing agricultural extension system aims to expand its outreach substantially and enable every farmer to access high-quality advisory services on crop production, marketing, value and supply chain management and Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices, weather advisories etc. The advisory services provide information about all Government schemes related to agriculture & allied sectors from which the farmers are benefited.

The Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with states of Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to onboard their technical and content review committees onto the network and have started work on small pilots.

Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare supports existing VISTAAR project implementation. No separate funds are allotted.

VISTAAR aims integration with all initiatives and federal solutions via the network for access of farmers to up-to date information. This includes leveraging AI enabled chatbots deployed at the ground level and subsequent integration with Agristack.

Efforts for VISTAAR includes extension worker training on the digital bots. This can be facilitated through existing partnerships and network volunteers for conducting training to Front Line Extension Workers (FLEW) to enhance video production skills and handling advanced IT tools to access required information at field level for providing further training to farmers in a phased manner.

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) have been signed with EkStep Foundation which is a not for profit organization for development of the VISTAAR DPI network on pro-bono basis. VISTAAR is also supported by not for profit organizations like Digital Green for content development on pro-bono basis. IIT-Madras has signed an MoU with DA&FW for sharing content on Agri-Startups for the benefit of farmers on pro-bono basis.

This information was given by Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Ramnath Thakur in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.