In September 2019, the union ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare launched a mobile app that then union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar called a ‘revolutionary service’, a digital solution for renting and purchasing tractors and other farm machinery.

Called FARMS or Farm Machinery Solutions, the app would give farmers the opportunity to earn an additional income from their agricultural equipment, make optimum use of available equipment, and provide a platform for the sale and purchase of old agricultural machinery.

In the summer of that year, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) election manifesto promised such an app under the heading ‘convergence of agriculture and technology’, one of 33 promises extended as part of the vision to ‘double farmers’ income’ by 2022.

As of 17 April 2024, while over 50 million farmers were registered on the app—over 98% were records migrated from an existing farmers’ database—the number of farmers who requested a booking was only 11,587. For 885 implements put up for sale in over four years, there were 19 purchasers.

The FARMS app is among 14 of the 33 (43%) agriculture-related promises included in the BJP’s 2019 manifesto that the civil society initiative Informed Voter Project has graded as ‘very-low’ performance in a report compiled after a rigorous six-month analysis of schemes and projects announced by the government of India towards the fulfillment of the BJP’s election promises.

The research and analysis was conducted by a team of researchers and volunteers from October 2023 to April 2024, comparing the promises against information and data on government websites, answers by ministries to questions posed by members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, parliamentary committee reports, Press Information Bureau-issued statements, newspapers and news websites, and other independent reports and data repositories.

The Informed Voter Project has released an analysis of 33 manifesto promises related to agriculture and 13 promises related to the ministry of environment, forests and climate change.





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