APEDA’s new AI basmati survey sparks debate over crop area and GI boundaries
India’s new AI-based basmati crop survey has reopened debate over the true cultivated area, project funding and the boundaries of the GI-protected basmati zone.
India’s new AI-based Basmati Paddy Survey for 2026-2028 has triggered a fresh dispute inside the rice sector. The Hindu BusinessLine reported that APEDA plans to cover about 4 million hectares, even though the agency’s own 2023 report had estimated total basmati cultivation at only 2.14 million hectares. That gap has turned the project into more than a technical survey: it now sits at the centre of a wider debate over how basmati production is measured and where it is legally recognised.
Officially, the project is intended to collect data from more than 150,000 ground-truth points, engage with over 500,000 farmers, and support more precise crop assessment, varietal identification, scientific advisory work and export planning. But industry sources quoted in the article see another implication. By deploying a survey across such a large territory, the government may be laying the groundwork for broader mapping of aromatic rice production, including areas beyond the currently recognised geographical indication zone. That matters because the legal question of adding Madhya Pradesh to the GI area remains unresolved.
The article also highlights funding and governance concerns. Money for the survey is expected to come from the corpus of the Basmati Export Development Foundation, which is financed through a charge of ₹70 per tonne collected from basmati exporters when contracts are registered before shipment. Questions were also raised about collaboration with a particular industry body whose representative is also a board member of BEDF. Together, those issues have added to scrutiny over how neutral and transparent the project structure will be.
Industry sources told the paper that APEDA had conducted basmati surveys every year until the kharif 2023 season, except during the Covid period, but discontinued them from 2024 under pressure from some exporters. They also said the agency that previously carried out the work was asked to include non-GI areas and refused because the crop grown there cannot legally be called basmati. That history makes the new survey especially sensitive, because any expansion in practical mapping could be read by the market as a step with possible legal and trade consequences.
The Indian Rice Exporters’ Federation said APEDA has not approached it so far for collaboration, but IREF would like to participate and views a structured crop survey as essential for sound policy decisions. At the same time, the federation supports reporting in two segments: basmati grown in the GI area and basmati varieties grown outside it. The article notes that the actual area sown with pure basmati varieties is typically around 2.1 million hectares, while the GI region itself spans more than 6 million hectares across parts of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Delhi.
The legal backdrop makes the survey even more important. APEDA received the GI certificate for basmati in February 2016, and that order was later upheld on appeal while Madhya Pradesh’s request for inclusion was rejected. The issue then reached the Supreme Court of India, which in September 2021 set aside a High Court order and sent the matter back for fresh consideration. The dispute has remained pending since then. As a result, the new APEDA survey is not only a digital crop-mapping exercise, but also part of a broader struggle over boundaries, policy and market power in the basmati trade.