What is Bharat-VISTAAR and how will the AI platform help India’s farmers?

Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday launched AI-powered digital platform Bharat-VISTAAR at an event in Jaipur.

Bharat-VISTAAR (Virtually Integrated System to Access Agricultural Resources) will provide farmers across the country round-the-clock access to weather forecasts, market prices, crop advice and government schemes through a single interface.

Voice-first system

The voice-first digital companion is designed to work even on basic feature phones, allowing farmers to access services by calling a dedicated helpline number, besides chatbots and web-based tools. An Android app will be rolled out subsequently.

The initiative seeks to bring scattered agriculture-related information under one umbrella and offer personalised, location-specific advice to farmers.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma joined Chouhan at the launch event, which also saw virtual participation from farmers across several states through networks of agricultural universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendras and other institutions.

Hindi and English

In its first phase, Bharat-VISTAAR will operate in Hindi and English and cover states including Maharashtra, Bihar and Gujarat.

The platform integrates weather data from the India Meteorological Department, mandi prices from Agmarknet, pest and disease alerts from the National Pest Surveillance System, and advisory inputs from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Access to central schemes

Farmers can currently access information on 10 major central schemes such as PM-KISAN, PM Fasal Bima Yojana, Soil Health Card and Kisan Credit Card, apart from checking benefit status, registering complaints, and receiving crop and livestock-related guidance.

Bharat-VISTAAR has been built as a farmer-centric digital public infrastructure on a “plug-and-play” model, enabling easy integration of central, state and cooperative systems, according to the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.

The platform also includes ICAR’s package of practices and soil health-based recommendations.

Chouhan and Sharma also launched the ‘AI for Agriculture Roadmap’ and announced an upcoming AI Hackathon and ‘AgriKosh’ initiative to further strengthen the use of artificial intelligence in the farm sector.

The government plans to expand the service to more states and languages over the coming months.

By May 2026, all central schemes are expected to be integrated, while regional languages including Tamil, Bengali, Assamese and Kannada will be added in the next phase, eventually taking the platform to 11 languages nationwide, officials said.