ISRO proposes satellites dedicated to agriculture sector

ATM News Network: The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has recommended special satellites to boost the country's agricultural industry, said ISRO President S Somnath has given. A proposal in this regard has been submitted to the government.

He was speaking on the occasion of Engineers Conclave 2022 being held at the Liquid Propulsion System Center (LPSC) in Valiamala. He said that the proposed 'Bharat Agriculture Satellite' program has been discussed with the Union Agriculture Department.

Two satellites will be required to cover the total agricultural area in the country. They will help in various agriculture-related tasks like crop forecasting, pesticide application, irrigation, soil data collection and generation of important data related to drought.

He further said that the yield of the crop comes in a few months. Not more than a week. Hence, constant surveillance is essential. “Today's satellites are not enough. So we need to add more satellites with higher repeatability. We have been advised to do the same. These satellites will not be owned by ISRO, but by the Union Agriculture Department. ISRO will only provide technical support”, explained President Somnath.

ISRO Chairman has proposed setting up of 'Earth Observation Council' to overcome current shortcomings in Earth observation capacity and data utilization. He claimed that such a council could solve the problems in the sector in a centralized manner.

According to Somnath, current satellites have shortcomings such as a lack of continuous Earth observation missions, underutilization of available remote sensing data, technological gaps, and lack of an organized method for data handling and distribution as per field demands.