National Programme on use of Space Technology for Agriculture
Source : PIB
GS III : Space
What is discussed under National Programme on use of Space Technology for Agriculture?
- Background of Indian Space Technology for Agriculture
- C(K)rop Insurance using Space technology And geoiNformatcs (KISAN)
Why in News ?
NPSTA is a proposed programme which envisages integrated use of Space and Geospatial Tools for Mapping, Monitoring and Management of Agriculture.
Key Facts
The following programmes will be subsumed under this. They are
i. Project FASAL (for crop forecasting),
ii. Project NADAMS (for drought assessment),
iii. Project CHAMAN (for horticultural assessment and development),
iv. Project KISAN (for crop insurance) and Crop Intensification planning
The programme will have four sub-programmes such as
- Crop Assessment & Monitoring,
- Agricultural Resources Management,
- Disaster Monitoring and Mitigation,
- Satellite Communication and Navigation Applications.
Background of Indian Space Technology for Agriculture
- Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, has been pro-active in using the space technology in agricultural sector.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash - The Ministry, since early 80s has been funding various projects, under which Indian Space Research Organisation developed methodologies for Crop Production Forecasting.
- In order to operationalize the satellite technology created by the Indian Space Research Organization for crop production forecasting, the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation, and Farmers Welfare built the Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre in 2012.
- Another facility run by the department, the Soil and Land Use Survey of India, uses satellite data to map soil resources.
How space technology helps in Agriculture?
- The use of space technology aids in obtaining quick and objective information regarding the nation’s crop situation.
- It offers digital data that can be subjected to numerous analyses.
- It offers photos of the entire country in a flash thanks to its synoptic perspective.
- Numerous programmes that require information on crop kind, estimated crop area, crop condition, crop damages, crop growth, etc. might use this data.
C(K)rop Insurance using Space technology And geoiNformatcs (KISAN)
- Started 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.], which were used to define Standard Operating Procedures for use of satellite data in the revised guidelines of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY).
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