In order to assess crop damages and to award corollary insurance benefits to farmers, the Centre will ask the Isro to put in place a constellation of satellites for speedy and timely availability of yield images. The move may find a space in the soon-to-be-unveiled National Crop Insurance Policy. The Centre is at an advanced stage to unveil the policy, which is likely to be launched in the current financial year. Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan are learnt to have separately apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi of pressing need for dedicated three to four satellites to ensure that the images of crop conditions are available with state governments for timely intervention. The ministry of agriculture, sources said, would ask the space agency to plan for putting in place the needed satellites, which can provide the images of crops on a weekly basis. During a two-day-long brainstorming session at Bhopal, participants had pointed out to Mr Chouhan that there were hiccups to relying on satellite images to help the farmers and state governments deal with the issue of crop damage. The experts had asked Mr Chouhan to press for a constellation of satellites if the government really wanted the satellite imageries to play effective role in awarding crop insurance benefits to the farmers. The experts had also pointed out that even the satellite images would be of little help. Mr Chouhan had recalled his experiences where there were standing crops, which did not flower to bear grains and thus the farmers were deprived of insurance claims. Experts from space agency have also conveyed to the government that they should not solely rely on the satellite images for crop insurance and should rather have field staff verify with on the spot assessment. The government would also ask the space agency to develop software for easy interpretation of the images.
Source - http://www.asianage.com/
