Bengaluru-based Pixxel Joins Hand with Skymet to Improve Farm Productivity

Pixxel, Indian space startup company based in Bengaluru on 24th October 2019 that it has joined hands with Skymet, a private weather forecaster to develop products that will help improve the output of small farms.

A press statement said that the partnership with Pixxel will give Skymet access to the former's high-resolution satellite imagery, which is designed to observe & map changes in agricultural phenomena such as crop & soil health, soil moisture & chlorophyll content. This will help boost small farm output and yield in India while reducing the costs, minimising the environmental impact with precision agriculture practices & better-managing agriculture production.

Pixxel is developing a constellation of earth imaging small satellites, which will provide worldwide coverage every 24 hours once it is fully deployed. After the image is beamed down to earth, the imagery from the company's satellites are ingested into a web platform that tracks changes in agricultural farms & helps improve production.

Meanwhile, Skymet told it was already working closely with Non Government Organizations to improve the sustenance of growers in different remote blocks of several States in India. It further said it has deployed 7,500 automated weather stations, 400 agricultural sensors and also a fleet of drones.

Awais Ahmed, the CEO of Pixxel said, “We are happy to partner with Skymet that enables us to fuse their weather dataset along with our unique imagery, helping millions of small farm holders in the country to improve their yields & lives. There have been several exciting advances in data, satellite imagery & machine learning for agriculture over the years. Only very little of these technologies have been available to Indian farms because of a lack of data-rich imagery".

Jatin Singh, Skymet Managing Director said the accord will usher in an era of unique & innovative customized products for agriculture sector. It will help us provide farmers personalised advisory at farm level, he added.