Designing AgriStack: Building India’s digital infrastructure for Agriculture

• Dec 22, 2023
• 1 min

The Government of India launched AgriStack to establish a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for agriculture that improves service delivery and farmer support systems across the country. AgriStack aims to unify and digitize farmer-centric data, enabling access to services such as crop advisory, credit, insurance, and market linkages. The platform is designed to be federated and open, allowing integration between central and state governments, as well as private sector actors.

MSC supported the conceptualization, design, and piloting of AgriStack. We focused on developing three foundational digital registries: the farmer registry, a georeferenced land parcel registry, and a crop sown registry. Through more than 10 pilots across diverse states, we tested and refined standard operating procedures (SOPs) that could be scaled nationally. MSC also helped develop user-facing digital applications and backend systems to support registry creation and maintenance. MSC created training manuals for local implementation teams and supported the development of uniform data structures and nomenclature to enable interoperability across platforms. This groundwork facilitates the creation of the Unified Farmers Services Interface (UFSI), a central data exchange layer for agriculture-related services.

AgriStack lays the foundation for a unified digital ecosystem for agriculture in India. MSC’s work contributed to a scalable and interoperable digital framework that supports real-time data-driven decision-making, increases farmer access to services, and improves efficiency across agricultural value chains. The project is currently in the rollout phase across India, signaling a transformative step in agricultural governance and service delivery.

The Gates Foundation commissioned the project.