Amul inks MoU with ISRO for fodder acreage estimation

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) today said it has signed an agreement with ISRO for fodder acreage assessment using satellite observation and space technology.
GCMMF markets its products under the brand name of 'Amul'.
Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), ISRO will help in identification between food crops and fodder crops at village level and also locate suitable areas of current fallows and cultivable wastelands at village level for green fodder cultivation, GCMMF said in a release.
Amul and Space Applications Centre (SAC), ISRO, had earlier carried out a joint pilot, which found that to assess green fodder availability for dairy livestock at district and village level through remote sensing is feasible, it added.

Fodder acreage estimation would act as a decision making tool for monitoring and planning of fodder development activities by the stakeholders in the dairy sector, it said.
Amul is currently procuring around 150 lakh litres of milk daily from around 35 lakh milk producer members from over 18,500 villages.
The milk producer farmers of Gujarat will get benefit of fodder cultivation by using this technology, it said.
"The development and growth of dairy animals are highly associated with the scope of availability of fodder from cultivable land, forest, pastures and grazing lands, which are crucial input for enhancing milk production and for survival of the bovine population," said GCMMF Managing Director R S Sodhi.