Use of Remote Sensing to Estimate Paddy Area and Production

Book excerpt: A substantial portion of the world's rice is produced and consumed in the Asia and Pacific region. As much of the region's population depends on rice farming for consumption and livelihood, the demand for good quality statistics remains essential for effective policy formulation. Recent advances in remote sensing serve as a viable alternative to traditional methods of compiling agricultural statistics by responding to the emerging data requirements and overall needs of modern agriculture, especially for staple commodities such as rice. This publication outlines the procedures, methods and tools developed for generating statistics on paddy rice area and production using remote sensing and GIS techniques. It is intended to encourage and assist national statistical systems in piloting and adopting satellite-based techniques as an alternative to existing data collection methods, while enabling other interested readers to comprehend whether the adoption of these methodologies can improve the quality and timeliness of agricultural statistics. The handbook also serves as a complement to a massive online open course developed by ADB for crop area estimation.