[pib] Use of Space Technology in Agriculture Sector

Mains Paper 3: Agriculture | E-technology in the aid of farmers

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Various initiatives mentioned in the newscard

Mains level: Various technological measures for enhancing farm productivity

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, has been pro-active in using the space technology in agricultural sector. Take a look of various initiative in the aid of farmers:

Various institutional measures

The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare established a Centre, called Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre, in 2012.
It works for operationalization of the space technology developed in the Indian Space Research Organization, for crop production forecasting.
The Soil and Land Use Survey of India uses satellite data for soil resources mapping.

Use of Space Technology

The Department is using space technology for its various programmes/ areas, such as:

Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space, Agro-meteorology and Land-based Observations (FASAL) project
Coordinated programme on Horticulture Assessment and Management using geoiNformatics (CHAMAN) project
National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS),
Rice-Fallow Area Mapping and intensification, geo tagging of infrastructure and assets created under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana,

Crop Insurance

The space technology helps getting fast and unbiased information about the crop situation in the country.
It provides digital data, which is amenable to various analysis. Because of its synoptic view, it provides images of the whole country in a very short duration.
Hence, this data can be used for various programmes, which need information on crop type, crop area estimates, crop condition, crop damages, crop growth etc.

KISAN Project

The Department has launched KISAN [C(K)rop Insurance using Space technology And geoiNformatcs] project during October 2015.
The project envisaged use of high-resolution remote sensing data for optimum crop cutting experiment planning and improving yield estimation.
Under this project, pilot studies were conducted in 4 districts of 4 States viz. Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
The study provided many useful inputs [for smart sampling, yield estimation, optimum number of Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) etc.
These were used to define Standard Operating Procedures for use of satellite data in the revised guidelines of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY).