Prerequisite 8 of 21

Mobile extension services

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8Built

The 2015 proposal

Mobile-based extension services delivering advice to every farmer (the deck cited TCS mKRISHI).

Where it stands in 2026

The deck’s mobile-extension idea generalised into a whole stack: the Kisan Call Centres, the mKisan SMS portal, the Kisan Suvidha app, and now AI advisories such as Kisan e-Mitra answering scheme and agronomy questions by voice. The economic case is settled — a landmark meta-analysis (Science, 2019) found digital advice lifts yields about 4% and input adherence about 22% at near-zero marginal cost — which is why this is the prerequisite AI most directly completes. The infrastructure is built; the open question is trust and uptake, not reach.

The open gap

Local-language depth and trust still limit real uptake.

How to sustain & deepen it

Deepen local-language trust with AI advisers (see the AI-in-the-field page) backed by human verification, so the voice on the phone is both fluent and right. Measure the thing that actually matters — uptake, not reach: the 4% yield and 22% adherence gains only land when a farmer believes the advice enough to act on it. Wire the advisory into the rest of the cycle so it speaks to the farmer’s own soil card, sowing window, insurance and price data rather than offering generic tips, and keep a human extension officer in the loop for the hard cases. Reach was the first-generation goal; trusted, acted-on advice is the second.

See it working: Farmer cockpit →

Now being realised with AI

A decade on, AI and machine learning are turning this prerequisite into reality — conversational advisers, computer-vision crop diagnosis and ML sowing advice are reaching farmers at scale across India and the world.

See how — AI in the field →

Where it sits in the chain

See the full map →

Depends on

Enables

Nothing yet — this is a capstone of the chain.

Sources