India bets on AI to drive next farm productivity surge

India’s next agricultural revolution will be powered by artificial intelligence, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said at the AI4Agri 2026 Summit in Mumbai, positioning AI as a central pillar of farm policy, research and investment. Speaking at the Global Conference on AI in Agriculture and Investor Summit 2026, the minister said AI could offer scalable solutions to long-standing structural constraints, including erratic weather, fragmented markets and information gaps.

Singh tied the push to the Rs 10,372 crore (about USD 1.25 billion) India AI Mission, which is building sovereign computing capacity, datasets and startup infrastructure. He highlighted BharatGen, a government-backed large language model ecosystem, which has launched “Agri Param,” an agriculture-focused model operating in 22 Indian languages to expand access to advisory services. He also cited investments in drone and satellite mapping to strengthen soil and land data, and the integration of AI with climate early warning systems to help farmers better manage risk.

With 140 million farm holdings, most of them small and marginal, Singh said even modest efficiency gains could unlock substantial value. If AI-enabled advisories help each farmer save Rs 5,000 annually, the sector could generate an estimated Rs 70,000 crore (about USD 8.4 billion) in added value each year. The Union Budget 2026–27 has proposed “Bharat-VISTAAR,” a multilingual AI tool integrating national agricultural databases to deliver customized guidance, while the government is calling on investors to back scalable agri-AI platforms rather than isolated pilot projects.