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Experts have debated whether YES-TECH can become a reliable alternative to manual crop cutting experiments for estimating crop losses under PMFBY.
The technology-based system could make yield estimation faster and more transparent, but accuracy and farmer trust remain key concerns.
A CSE report on Madhya Pradesh found dissatisfaction among some soybean farmers over claim settlements after YES-TECH was adopted for selected crops.
Panellists said manual crop cutting experiments are cumbersome and prone to inconsistencies, but warned that technology-based estimates must be independently assessed and improved.
Experts said accurate yield estimation is essential for crop insurance to function as a meaningful safety net for farmers.
Accurate crop-loss estimation is central to fair insurance payouts under India’s flagship crop insurance scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), experts said during a webinar hosted by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment on May 18, 2026.
The panellists discussed how accurately farm yields are measured, and whether technology can replace the manual crop cutting experiments that PMFBY has historically and still largely depends upon.
Climate-resilient agriculture relies significantly on effective agricultural risk management, which in turn relies on accurate crop loss estimation. This has traditionally been done through crop cutting experiments (CCE) — a process widely seen as resource-intensive, cumbersome and prone to inconsistencies. The Yield Estimation System based on Technology (YES-TECH), under PMFBY, has emerged as an alternative that uses technology to estimate yields.
Starting kharif 2023, Madhya Pradesh took the lead by adopting YES-TECH for select crops such as soybean, wheat and paddy, and allocated 100 per cent weightage to it as compared to CCEs. However, reports in the media flagged dissatisfaction among farmers, particularly among soybean cultivators, around delayed and inadequate claim settlements despite crop losses.
The report titled Implementation of Yield Estimation System based on Technology (YES-TECH) in Madhya Pradesh: Learnings from select districts towards improved claim settlement against crop losses as part of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) aimed to understand the ground reality of farmers’ dissatisfaction.
The findings of the report suggested that the big soybean farmers in Sehore, Vidisha and Bhopal, districts where the research was conducted were dissatisfied with the claim settlement process under YES-TECH compared to manual CCEs done earlier.
However, engagements with multiple stakeholders like state agriculture department, Madhya Pradesh Council of Science and Technology (MPCST), insurance companies, local and district level authorities and farmers made it clear that the reason for this perceived lack/limited claims was historical inaccuracies in crop loss reporting by farmers. The report also pointed towards the possibility of YES-TECH as a potential alternative to manual CCEs if carefully worked upon.
The report was presented in the webinar, followed by a panel discussion. The discussion was open to the general public and had panelists from the Madhya Pradesh Council for Science and Technology (MPCST), Government of Maharashtra, and insurance company HDFC Ergo as well as an independent consultant.
"Insurance can only be fair and closer to reality when relied upon accurate yields", said Sudhir Kumar Goel, an independent consultant and former additional chief secretary agriculture and marketing, Government of Maharashtra; urging technology implementers to discuss further on which technologies are closest to producing accurate results in the variety of agro-climatic zones having ongoing YES-TECH implementation.
Nivedita Mandal, senior vice president for rural and agri business, HDFC Ergo observed that YES-TECH's introduction came at a juncture when production data was high but, paradoxically, so were claims for crop losses, pointing to distortions in the existing system. Manual CCEs, the panelist noted, are also subject to moral hazard due to manual intervention in field-level reporting, a problem that YES-TECH could help address.
Vinaykumar Awate, director of agriculture planning and processing, Government of Maharashtra pointed towards a wide gap between yields recorded through CCEs and those generated through YES-TECH. In some districts of Maharashtra, the two have shown tremendous variations — this gap needs to be studied by technologists. He further suggested independent third-party analyses of this system to develop the technology further in the future.
Responding to the findings of the report, the representative from Madhya Pradesh Council for Science and Technology (MPCST) shared that the core of the problem lies in the historically reported yields based on manual CCEs. While, YES-TECH yields remain more transparent than CCE yields.
The inaccuracies in technology-based estimation, it was felt, are smaller than those in manual CCEs — making technology the ‘lesser evil’ and the way forward, provided its accuracy is continuously worked upon. Without that crop insurance defeats its very purpose of acting as a safety net. In addition to that, it was also discussed that plot level index-based insurance mechanisms delivered through technology, could be piloted by states.
The discussion converged towards a broader understanding that while manual CCEs could be theoretically sound, YES-TECH clearly helps in the timeliness of claim settlement while eliminating the cumbersome nature and large numbers associated with manual CCEs. Building trust with farmers would be essential — given that PMFBY is, at the end of the day, a farmer-centric scheme. The way forward, panelists discussed, would be one of careful and conscious progression, with work to improve the underlying technology and measure inaccuracies in both systems.