Crop data to help farmers across India within 6 months: Sibal

New Delhi, July 30 (UNI) To provide the farming community early assessment of crop damage due to severe weather conditions, the Science and Technology Department has successfully developed a model for Haryana which would be extend to the entire country, including suicide-hit Andhra Pradesh, in the next six months, it was announced today.

''The Department has developed the capacity to monitor crop health in real time for Haryana. It is now doing it for Punjab. The entire country will be covered in the next six months,'' Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal told a press conference here.

He said the biomass data was based on multi-satellite images and validated with crop cutting data for 6,000 villages of Haryana.

The system was set up as a consequence of hailstorm in Rewai on March 12 which destroyed 90 per cent of the crops.

The project covered crops such as wheat, gram, mustard, rice and cotton, and provided weekly data on rainfall, temperature and soil moisture. It was also possible to mark out areas that were under stress either due to heat conditions or due to lack of water.

''Now we are doing it for sugarcane, and in 1-2 months the relevant data would be collected,'' he added.

He said the project will not only monitor the onset of drought in real time but also help in early detection of crop disease.

It can be used for crop insurance and weather insurance-related products, thereby enabling the Government to extend the social safety net to the farming community.

Its other potential applications are in the irrigation management of cropped areas, and detection of villages with low productivity.

''The State Governments will know where water is not reaching the farmers, what will be the production and what to import. And if there is expected to be overproduction, which will result in fall in prices, policy changes can be made,'' Mr Sibal said.

''As we go along, we will improve the methodology,'' he added.

UNI