Technology In Farming

Why is it in News?

The Agriculture Ministry plans to start a pilot project which would use technology to determine yield estimates at the Panchayat level this summer. This would reduce the delay of crop insurance claim settlements and increase the accuracy of compensation due to farmers.
The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) requires the States to carry out minimum of four crop-wise Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) in every gram panchayat for the submission of the yield data to insurance companies within 30 days of harvest.

Crop Cutting Experiment (CCE):

CCE (Crop Cutting Experiment) is a process used to analyse the overall crop yield of the village and forms the basis for the Government to disburse crop insurance claims to farmers, under the PMFBY.
The current methodology of yield estimation is affected by the shortage of current year data at the time of planning of CCEs, affecting the accuracy of estimates.

How will the Pilot Project carried out?

Now a pilot project is to be carried out in the kharif 2019, aims to directly estimate yields without using CCEs.
Technologies such as satellite and remote sensing data, unmanned aerial vehicles and artificial intelligence will be used to assess yield estimates without the need of time-consuming and laborious crop-cutting experiments, according to the parameters of the project issued.
The pilot project will focus on paddy, soybean, cotton, bajra, maize, sorghum and groundnut.