The Union Agriculture Ministry has signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Pixxel Space India to develop various geospatial solutions, mainly for monitoring the health of crops and soil.

The MoU  was signed on Monday in the presence of Agriculture Secretary Manoj Ahuja.

MNCFC (Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre) signed the MoU on behalf of the Government of India, with  Pixel Space India Pvt. Ltd. It aims to develop various geospatial solutions on a free of cost basis for the Indian agriculture ecosystem using Pixxel’s hyperspectral datasets.

The project focuses on leveraging sample hyperspectral data from Pixxel’s path finder satellites to develop analytics models focused on crop mapping, crop stage discrimination, crop health monitoring, and soil organic carbon assessments. 

This will enable the Government to develop use cases with hyperspectral data provided by PIXXEL. MNCFC on behalf of the DA&FW will associate with Pixel team for developing and implementing the suitable methodologies.

Hyperspectral remote sensing technology includes spectral measurements in narrow wavelength bands by satellites and such measurements offer certain unique indices to monitor and assess health of crops and soils. 

This is an emerging technology with unique capabilities for monitoring agriculture. Crop health monitoring by detecting the changes in chlorophyll content and canopy moisture status, using hyperspectral data would be beneficial to find crop risk management solutions to farmers.

Soil nutrient mapping including soil organic carbon assessments is one of the important applications of hyperspectral technology. The soil reflectance observations measured by the sensors offer more direct, cost-effective datasets to estimate soil organic carbon.

This will also help to develop the early detection of crop stress, accurate diagnostics of crop stress due to pest/disease or water using hyper spectral data offer numerous opportunities to strengthen the current advisory system of the Government benefiting to millions of farmers.