Agricultural Service Streamlines Imagery Purchases

摘要

A U.S. government agency that relies on satellite imagery to monitor global crop conditions is taking steps to streamline the way it buys data. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is among the biggest government customers for Landsat imagery and also pulls in information from other sources in order to stay abreast of daily changes around the world. While there is not a specific budget line dedicated to acquiring satellite imagery, the FAS spends about $4 million per year on data products. That funding is spent mainly with companies that develop advanced products from raw Landsat satellite images. FAS launched a new contract March 1 that is designed to allow its satellite imagery acquisition process to make better use of its limited budget, said Brad Doom, remote sensing coordinator for the FAS's Crop Assessment Division.