Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday, June 1, 2026, publicly endorsed the E-FARMS mobile application as a practical tool to help farmers apply fertilisers more precisely, reduce input costs, and protect soil health. The minister, who observed a live demonstration of the app in Raisen, Madhya Pradesh, urged all farmers across the country to adopt technology as a means of boosting income while preserving the long-term health of agricultural land.

Context

Posting under the hashtag #KhetBachaoAbhiyan (Save the Farm Campaign), Chouhan flagged a widespread practice among farmers of applying more fertiliser than their crops actually need. 'Unhe lagta hai ki jitni zyada khaad, utni achhi fasal' — 'They believe that more fertiliser means a better harvest' — he wrote, identifying this misconception as a dual threat: it degrades soil quality and places an unnecessary financial burden on farming households. The E-FARMS app, he said, addresses this by providing precise, soil-health-based advisories tailored to specific crop requirements.

Chouhan described the Raisen demonstration as a live showcase of the app's capabilities, adding that he personally witnessed how it generates recommendations. His appeal was directed at 'sabhi kisan bhai-behnon' — 'all farmer brothers and sisters' — to embrace digital tools as part of their farming practice.

Policy Backdrop

The push for precision nutrient management has a clear policy lineage in India. The Soil Health Card Scheme, launched in February 2015, was the central government's first systematic effort to provide farmers with soil-test-based fertiliser recommendations, covering nutrient levels across millions of farm plots nationwide. The scheme aimed to wean farmers away from blanket urea application, which had been linked to declining soil organic carbon and long-term productivity loss.

From 2021 onwards, the Digital Agriculture Mission expanded this framework by integrating mobile-based, location-specific crop and input advisories. E-FARMS fits within this broader arc: a mobile-first interface that translates soil data into actionable guidance for individual farmers, potentially building on the nutrient profiles already captured under the Soil Health Card programme. Excessive and imbalanced fertiliser use has remained a persistent challenge for Indian agriculture, contributing to both environmental degradation and inflated cultivation costs for smallholders.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries of precision fertiliser advisory tools are small and marginal farmers, who account for the majority of India's agricultural holdings and are most exposed to the financial risk of input overuse. For this group, even a modest reduction in fertiliser expenditure can meaningfully improve net farm income, particularly as input prices have remained elevated in recent years.

From a fiscal standpoint, rationalising fertiliser application has implications for the central fertiliser subsidy bill, which runs into tens of thousands of crore rupees annually. If data-driven apps like E-FARMS succeed in shifting farmer behaviour at scale, they could contribute to subsidy savings without cutting support to farmers. Soil scientists and agronomists have long argued that restoring soil organic matter requires sustained reduction in chemical input loads — making the app's advisory function relevant beyond economics alone.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to the state-level rollout timeline for the E-FARMS app and whether it will be formally integrated with existing Soil Health Card data to deliver farmer-specific recommendations. Parliamentary scrutiny of adoption metrics — how many farmers download and actively use the app — and any measurable impact on fertiliser consumption will be key indicators of its real-world effectiveness. Chouhan's personal visit to Raisen and his direct social media appeal suggest the ministry is in an active promotion phase, signalling that wider institutional outreach, possibly through Krishi Vigyan Kendras and state agriculture departments, may follow.