Anand: The first remote sensing centre for estimation of fodder crops in Kaira and Anand districts was opened at AMUL Dairy, Anand on 3rd March 2018 by Director, SAC, ISRO Shri Tapan Misra in presence of Shri Ramsinh Parmar, Chairman GCMMF and Amul Dairy, Shri R S Sodhi, Managing Director GCMMF and Dr Rathnam, Managing Director, Amul Dairy.

GCMMF and ISRO had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to this effect in 2017. The Amul Remote Sensing Center will work towards estimation of fodder crops in Kaira, Anand, Mahisagar districts and similar centre of Banas dairy shall work in Banaskantha and Patan districts of Gujarat.

This is an innovative idea to help milk producers to help them to know when to initiate cultivation of fodder crop by use of satellite images. This would help farmers to estimate fodder production, plan them to grow / intensify fodder production and improve fodder availability leading to increase in milk production and economic benefit. This will pave a new era of fodder crop management using satellite data for current status of fodder crops grown during one crop cycle like rabi, kharif and summer in a year.

Fodder crop estimation would act as a decision making tool for monitoring national level project like Accelerated Fodder development Program (AFDP) , National Livestock Mission (NLM), NDP-phase 1, and other watershed projects. It can be utilized in Dairy sector for decision support in drought management also. Gradually it will be scaled up to all districts of Gujarat through respective Milk Unions of GCMMF.