“Agricultural transformation lies at the heart of India’s vision to become a developed nation by 2047,” the Aayog said in its report Reimagining Agriculture: A Roadmap for Frontier Technology Led Transformation.
“Recognising agriculture’s critical role in ensuring economic resilience, rural prosperity, and food security, frontier technologies such as seed technologies, verticalised farming, digital twins, precision agriculture and smart sensors, agentic AI, predictive analytics, and advanced mechanisation offer unprecedented possibilities to significantly enhance productivity, sustainability, and farmer incomes,” it said.
As per the report, jointly developed with BCG, Google and CII and released on Monday, the government needs to act as a facilitator and orchestrator helping enhance foundational capabilities by providing a stable and future-ready policy and regulatory environment, building robust digital and physical infrastructure, improving data systems, and enabling last-mile connectivity while also converging efforts across sectors.
The Aayog has outlined six systemic barriers in the report that are currently limiting technology scale-up and impeding the transformation of Indian agriculture.
These include siloed agricultural data systems, trust deficits among farmers, a persistent ‘phygital divide’ between digital innovations and physical infrastructure, ecosystem fragmentation restricting scalable solutions, talent gaps affecting technology implementation, and constrained capital flows, especially for early-stage agri-tech enterprises. “Enhance foundational systems which can take the benefits of the digital infrastructure being built to the farm, proactively reimagine research and talent systems by fostering interdisciplinary, mission-oriented research and institutionalise centres of excellence and policy foresight units to converge public-private efforts, aligning policymaking and regulatory framework with national priorities, market needs, research agendas, and inclusive grassroots dissemination strategies to accelerate transformation,” the Aayog has proposed. Releasing the report, NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam said no two farmers in India are the same, and technology must reflect that diversity. “The real impact of frontier technologies will come from how well we customize solutions — whether for a smallholder or a commercial cultivator; a farmer growing staples or a horticulturist,” Subrahmanyam added.
The Aayog is of the view that India must invest along two parallel tracks in order to resolve immediate challenges that constrain current productivity, income, and resilience, and build readiness for future breakthroughs so that when transformative technologies emerge, the system is primed for rapid adoption and scale.
“Both tracks are equally urgent. Focusing only on today’s issues risks stagnation. Focusing only on tomorrow leaves millions vulnerable in the present,” it added.