After getting a setback due to the rollback of recent farm laws, Centre appears to be in the process of creating a lobby of innovative and progressive farmers who could take a lead in the Agriculture sector.

To begin with, the Government would prepare a data bank of ‘Federated Farmers’ from publicly available data from various government departments and then make a base to propagate its ‘progressive policies and farm laws’. If all goes well, it would ultimately create a ‘strong lobby’ of progressive farmers who could advocate the ‘desired changes’ in agriculture laws. “They might become a chain between the farmers’ and policymakers to bring revolutionary changes in the Agriculture Sector,” said a senior officer of the Agriculture Ministry.

The move is more or less on the lines of Farmer’s lobby effectively working in New Zealand and Australia. In New Zealand, the lobby of progress farmers (Federated Farmers) was formed in 1902. Presently it is a strong lobby and advocacy group of farmers with over 13000 members to take up farming issues nationally as well as internationally to help farmers and increase their income.

On these lines, a similar lobby was formed in Australia (National Farmer’s Federation-NFF) in 1979 to look after the business interests of farmers. It plans access to Agri-markets and its digital connectivity. The other key issues taken up by the NFF include natural resource management, biosecurity, health and welfare, and education and training of farmers.

Learning from the experience of these countries, India has also initiated a process for creating various agricultural services building around a core layer of Farmer’s Database (AGRITACK). It is also in the process of finalizing the “India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture” (IDEA) that lays around a framework for building Agritracks, said a senior officer of the Agriculture Ministry here on Wednesday.

The Data bank of Federated Farmers would also serve as the core of the envisaged Agristack. The database would include farmers from all sectors including horticulture, agroforestry, animal husbandry. The main idea is to create an Ecosystem that would help the Union Government to prepare plan and policy to increase farmer’s income and efficiency of the agriculture sector as a whole, said a senior officer of Agriculture Ministry

The government is building the data bank of the federated farmers from publicly available data of various Departments and linking it with the digitized land records. Government is also ensuring data protection. In future the government might also consider enrolment of farmers mandatory. “Presently, the proposed data farmer’s database would include the farmers registered under the PM-Kisan Scheme,” revealed Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar while replying to a question in the Lok sabha on Wednesday evening.

If senior officers of the Agriculture Ministry are to be believed, the lobby of Progressive farmers in India would not only help the government in making new farm laws but would also create an ecosystem to promote farmers’ income and innovative environmental-friendly technologies.