As Andhra Pradesh pushes ahead with digitisation of agriculture, Adivasi farmers and civil society groups have raised concerns over whether the state’s growing dependence on digital platforms will leave some of the most marginalised farmers without access to government schemes and agricultural services.
The concerns were raised at a two-day consultation held in Visakhapatnam on August 26 and 27, which brought together Adivasi farmers, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and civil society outfits to discuss the impact of digitisation on farming communities. The consultation was organised by Lib Tech in association with Hands of Transition, a communications and social impact network working with grassroots farming communities.
Nearly 20 Adivasi farmers from Alluri Sitarama Raju district participated in the consultation. Rather than having individual farmers speak on a panel, participants were divided into four groups, each focusing on a particular theme. Subject experts also joined the groups, which were asked to identify problems faced by farmers and suggest both short and long-term solutions.
The consultation comes amid the Andhra Pradesh government’s increasing emphasis on technology and the digitisation of agricultural services. According to Chakradhar Buddha, co-founder of Lib Tech, the state’s push towards becoming a leader in digital technologies could have unintended consequences for Adivasi farmers.
“Whenever Andhra tries to become number one in digital technologies, it is Adivasis who face the brunt of it,” he said.
Chakradhar pointed to the government’s emphasis on farmer registration IDs under AgriStack, with Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu recently highlighting the state’s progress in issuing Farmer IDs and indicating that agricultural services would increasingly be linked to them.
He said around 48% of forest patta holders in Andhra Pradesh are yet to be registered as farmers.
“Now what will happen to them? Maybe in the larger statistics this is a small number. But this is a huge marginalised population. This is why it is imperative to discuss Adivasis and digitisation because they get lost in the larger data science because their numbers are small and less visible to the state,” he said.
Chakradhar said the debate around digitisation had increasingly become polarised, with people either viewing technology as a solution to existing problems or opposing it altogether. The consultation, he said, was intended to bring different stakeholders together to identify the problems created by digitisation and work towards possible solutions.
Rohin Kumar of Hands of Transition warned that AgriStack could become the new reality of Indian agriculture in the coming years. He pointed to the Union government’s allocation of Rs 150 crore in the 2026-27 Budget for Bharat-VISTAAR, a voice-first, multilingual Artificial Intelligence platform intended to provide information and services to farmers.
AgriStack is the government’s farmer-centric Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to make agricultural services, welfare schemes and financial support faster and more transparent. It is currently being implemented in 14 states, including Andhra Pradesh.
Rohin said one of the biggest drivers of AgriStack registration has been the linking of Farmer IDs with PM-KISAN payments. Farmer IDs have been made mandatory for PM-KISAN in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.
He said the conditions attached to AgriStack have also expanded beyond PM-KISAN. In Chhattisgarh, farmers have reportedly been barred from selling paddy without AgriStack registration, while Madhya Pradesh’s e-Vikas fertiliser distribution system requires registration.
“The problem with AgriStack is that it is only provided to landowners, and essentially the tenant farmers and Adivasis are largely left out of this,” Rohin said.
According to him, AgriStack was initially presented as a voluntary initiative but has increasingly become a requirement for accessing agricultural benefits.
He said the focus of organisations working on the issue was therefore twofold: making AgriStack more inclusive by bringing landless and tenant farmers into the system, and exploring whether a community-based model of Digital Public Infrastructure could be developed.
The consultation also brought attention to problems surrounding Crop Cultivators’ Rights Cards (CCRCs), which are intended to provide tenant farmers with access to government benefits.
Farmers said that while Andhra Pradesh has formally recognised tenant farmers and enabled them to access several welfare schemes, there are significant gaps in the implementation of the CCRC system.
Under the existing system, a tenant farmer can obtain multiple CCRCs, which the government has cited as an indicator of the scheme’s success. However, farmers at the consultation alleged that a small number of farmers are accessing a disproportionate share of the benefits.
They also sought greater transparency in the issuing of CCRCs. Activist Gade Sreenu of the Rural Development Service Society said a CCRC dashboard was no longer available.
“Earlier there used to be a dashboard, now that is no longer there. This should again be displayed,” he said.
Farmers also pointed to the difficulties created by the process through which tenant cultivators are identified. They said earlier provisions under the 2011 Land Licensed Cultivators Act gave greater autonomy to gram sabhas to identify cultivators and ensure that benefits reached them directly.
However, they argued that the Crop Cultivators’ Rights Act, 2019 reduced the role of gram sabhas and made the identification of cultivators dependent on the approval of landowners.
This has created another barrier, farmers said, as some landowners are reluctant to sign documents recognising tenants as cultivators because of fears that doing so could affect their ownership of the land. Lack of awareness about the process among both landowners and tenants further prevents many tenant farmers from obtaining CCRCs and accessing government schemes.
The farmers also raised concerns over the alleged illegal acquisition of agricultural land in Scheduled Areas by non-Adivasis. They cited instances in Anantagiri mandal where 13 areas including the villages of Kasipuram village and Nandivalasa have been allegedly illegally converted as a non-scheduled area, in violation of protections applicable to tribal areas.