The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare on Monday reviewed a comprehensive series of major reform measures aimed at simplifying processes for farmers, traders and agri-sector stakeholders. According to reports from Business Standard and The Impressive Times, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan directed officials to further intensify the reform process to promote transparency, technological efficiency and good governance in the agriculture sector. Addressing the meeting, Chouhan said the ministry would accelerate reforms to make agricultural governance more technology-driven, transparent and efficient. The primary objective of the reforms is to make procedures 'simpler, faster and more effective' for farmers, traders, entrepreneurs and all stakeholders connected with agriculture.
The licensing process for the sale and storage of household pesticides has been significantly simplified as part of the reform measures. As reported by Business Standard and The Impressive Times, the application form for obtaining a licence has been reduced from three pages to a single page. Additionally, the traditional system of providing physical leaflets with products has been discontinued and replaced with QR codes directly on product labels, eliminating additional paperwork. This reform is expected to benefit more than 40 lakh retailers and grocery shopkeepers selling products such as mosquito repellent mats, coils, liquid vaporisers and cockroach sprays.
Significant improvements have been made to the registration process for new fertilisers under the Fertilizer Control Order (FCO), 1985. According to Business Standard and The Impressive Times, earlier a two-tier system was in place for inclusion of new fertilisers, their specifications and methods of analysis, requiring approval from both the Technical Committee and the Central Fertilizer Committee. The dual approval mechanism has now been removed, and only the Central Fertilizer Committee has been authorised. So far, 19 applicants and manufacturers have benefited from the new system. The ministry is also considering further reforms under the Fertilizer Control Order, 1985, to speed up the approval process for new fertiliser technologies. Under the proposed changes, inorganic fertilisers meeting prescribed quality and safety standards may be exempted from mandatory field trials, with the proposal having already received in-principle approval.
Digital integration has been successfully completed across all 649 customs ports in the country. As reported by Business Standard and The Impressive Times, end-to-end integration has been established between the Plant Quarantine Management System (PQMS) and the Indian Customs Electronic Data Interchange Gateway (ICEGATE). Agricultural commodity importers will now need to submit only a single application through ICEGATE, following which the Import Release Order (IRO) will be issued directly to the importer's login. This integration has facilitated the import of agricultural commodities and streamlined customs procedures.
The import-export process for seeds and planting materials has been simplified through comprehensive reforms. According to Business Standard and The Impressive Times, the government has completely abolished the EXIM Committee and also removed the mandatory requirement of obtaining "Prior Recommendation", making the import-export process for seeds and planting materials faster and more convenient.
The officials reviewed the 'Bharat-VISTAAR - AI in Agriculture' platform, which has demonstrated strong performance since its launch. As reported by Business Standard and The Impressive Times, the platform is a new central AI-based system designed to provide important agriculture-related information on a single platform. Since the launch of its first phase on February 17, 2026, the platform has received more than 44 lakh queries, indicating significant farmer adoption and utility. The platform enables farmers to access all services from a single platform at any time, replacing the need to access over 15 separate platforms for agricultural information previously.
