Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Remote sensing only hope for farm sector

G. Ravikiran

VIJAYAWADA: Water resources expert T. Hanumantha Rao has strongly advocated the need to use remote sensing to improve the lot of farmers and increase agricultural productivity on a par with advanced countries.

Speaking to The Hindu here on Saturday, the United Nations Consultant said that despite the tall claims being made by the Centre about additional land coming under cultivation, it had not reflected in agricultural production. Food g rain production had actually come down from 17 million tonnes to 16 million tonnes in just a year.

“This is reason enough for us to wake up to the reality and make use of advanced technologies like remote sensing to prevent further erosion,” he remarked.

Dr. Rao, a former chief engineer of the Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Department and also a consultant for the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), expressed concern over decline in paddy production by 1 lakh tonnes.

“How can the Government explain all this? An increase in ayacut in various projects, new and old, should result in a corresponding rise in production. But this is not happening.

The figures given by the Bureau of Economics and Statistics give a different picture,” he observed.

In defence of the need to use remote sensing in agriculture, Dr. Rao said that the technology would be useful in increasing productivity, ensuring optimum utilisation of water resources and detecting concealed ayacuts that do not yield water cess.

With the help of remote sensing data provided by a satellite 36 km above the ground, monitoring of even minute changes in temperature of crops and distribution of water would be possible.

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