Soyuz Atameken suggests to identify Kazakhstan's drought-hit lands from space

Soyuz Atameken suggests to identify Kazakhstan's drought-hit lands from space, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Rakhim Oshakbayev, first deputy chairman of National Economic Chamber Soyuz Atameken, as saying at the extended meeting of the central council of Kazakhstan Farmers Union and the board of the mutual insurance union SFK Insurance. “Kazakhstan will always have a high harvest volatility because of the climate conditions. Two of the last three years were dry. One of Atameken’s suggestions is to use advanced space technologies. We have the National Center of Space Information and Technologies. At least 6 satellites are surveying the whole territory of Kazakhstan every day and can identify drought-hit lands. There is no problem to get an accurate assessment with the use of these space surveys. Kazakhstan Farmers Union estimates that 1.5 million hectares of land have been hit by drought in our country. This evaluation is twice higher than the official statement that only 776 thousand hectares are hit. That means that we still do not have a reliable system for evaluation of drought consequences in agriculture,” Oshakbayev said at the meeting. According to him, Kazakhstan scientists have already developed a method of reliable evaluation of the real yield of grain crops at least in three oblasts: Akmola, North-Kazakhstan and Kostanay. “This system can also be used to evaluate the real yield. This is especially important since farmers mistrust official information on yield and croppage. This data is overstated almost 30-fold,” he explained. By Shynar Ospanova