The Digital Agricultural Reference Bureau (DARB) brings together a range of data-driven solutions designed to support informed decision-making across the agricultural sector. Key components include Progress out of Poverty (POP) Credit Scoring, which analyzes farmer profiles to provide insights into creditworthiness and support financial institutions in extending appropriate financing to underserved farmers, and Digital Soil Mapping, developed in partnership with NARO, which provides detailed insights into soil characteristics to help determine suitable crops and recommended soil management practices.
DARB has profiled and analyzed data from over 680,352 farmers and 30,446 agricultural SMEs, creating a comprehensive agricultural information resource that is continuously updated to reflect the evolving information needs of key sector stakeholders. This data is maintained through a network of approximately 3,000 field agents across the country, who collect and update field-level information.
Through partnerships with financial service providers and other agricultural stakeholders, updated DARB data is processed and tailored to specific use cases, including credit assessment, agricultural profiling, market intelligence, and analysis of farming clusters. This enables partners to better understand agricultural communities, identify opportunities, and design services that respond to farmers' needs. Resources generated through these partnerships are reinvested into continuously expanding and improving the agricultural data ecosystem.
