Ahead of the nationwide implementation of the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), the Centre has convened a national conference with the States to discuss the improvement in crop production statistics in New Delhi on Thursday (August 22, 2024).
The new initiative, according to the Centre, aims to enhance the accuracy, reliability and transparency of agricultural statistics — which will help in policy formulation, trade decisions and agricultural planning.
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Chairing the conference, Union Agriculture Secretary Devesh Chaturvedi said there is a need for continuous collaboration between the Union and State governments to achieve the shared goal of enhancing the quality of agricultural statistics.
“The primary focus of the conference was on the enhancement of agricultural production estimates and the integration of technology to strengthen data accuracy,” the Centre said in a release.
The Centre had announced the move to hold Digital Crop Survey in the recently presented Budget and had said that it will help in accurate crop-area estimation.
“It will provide plot-level data with geotagged areas of crops and act as a single source of truth,” the Agriculture Ministry said. “DGCES has been initiated to calculate yield based on scientifically designed crop cutting experiments for all major crops across the country. These initiatives are expected to provide near real-time and reliable data directly from the field, enabling more precise estimations of crop production,” the Ministry added.
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The conference discussed the need for integrating cutting-edge technologies like remote sensing, geospatial analysis and artificial intelligence in generating crop production statistics through revamped FASAL (Forecasting Agricultural output using Space, Agro-meteorology, and Land-based observations).
“This updated version leverages remote sensing technology to generate accurate crop maps and area estimations for 10 major crops,” the Ministry added. The adoption of digital surveys and advanced technologies will lead to more efficient data collection, reduce discrepancies, and ultimately contribute to better policymaking in the agricultural sector, the Ministry claimed.
Published - August 22, 2024 09:39 pm IST
