Sugarcane acreage mapped with satellite is higher by 3% than the government estimates

PUNE: Satellite mapping of sugarcane acreage carried out for the first at at all India level shows increase of 3% than the government estimate of sugar cane area. The data shows sugarcane acreage to be the same in UP and higher by 3% in Maharashtra as compared to figures projected by the ministry of agriculture for the two states.

The satellite-based area survey has been jointly carried out by Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) and National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd. (NFCSF) in order to reduce the deficiencies involved in manual estimation of acreage. The Government of India has already provisioned satellite crop surveys under their 'FASAL' programme (Forecasting of Agriculture outputs through Satellite, Agro-meteorology and Land based observations).

According to the satellite data, the sugarcane acreage for 2011-12 has been estimated at 51.82 lakh hectares. This is slightly higher than the estimates of sugarcane area made manually by the sugar industry at 50.79 lakh hectares, by ministry of agriculture at 50.93 lakh hectares and ministry of food and public distribution at 50.25 lakh hectares. The area estimated for 2011-12 sugar season through the satellite mapping of 51.82 lakh hectares is 2.38 lakh hectares higher than the actual area of 49.44 lakh hectares last year. This is an increase of 4.8%.

The sugar cane acreage is projected to be about 22.52 lakh hectares and 9.92 lakh hectares in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively by ministry of agriculture in their first advance estimation.

" In future, the sugar industry intends to get reports in August and February, every year as the first and second reports respectively, which would give an opportunity to review the estimates midyear also ,"stated the release adding, " With further refinement in the estimation, efforts would be made to survey individual sugar mill-wise area and latter, if possible, efforts could be made for an estimation of the yield."