:Bengaluru-based earth imaging company Pixxel said on Thursday that it joined hands with private weather forecaster Skymet to develop products that would help improve the productivity of small farms.

The partnership with Pixxel will give Noida-based Skymet access to the former's high-resolution satellite imagery, designed to observe and map changes in agricultural phenomena like crop and soil health, soil moisture and chlorophyll content. This will help increase small farm productivity and yield in India while decreasing costs, minimising the environmental impact with precision agriculture practices, and better-managing agriculture production, a press statement said on Thursday.

Pixxel is building a constellation of earth imaging small satellites that will provide global coverage every 24 hours once it is fully deployed. After the imagery is beamed down to earth, the images from Pixxel’s satellites are ingested into a web platform that tracks changes in agricultural farms and helps improve productivity.

Skymet said it was already working closely with NGOs to improve the sustenance of farmers in different remote blocks of many States in India. It said it has already deployed 7,500 automated weather stations, 400 agricultural sensors and a fleet of drones.

“We are delighted to partner with Skymet which enables us to fuse their weather dataset along with our unique imagery, helping millions of small farm holders in India to improve their yields and lives. There have been many exciting advances in data, satellite imagery, and machine learning for agriculture over the years. Until recently, very little of these technologies have been available to Indian farms due to a lack of data-rich imagery, said Pixxel CEO Awais Ahmed.

Skymet Managing Director Jatin Singh said the agreement will usher in an era of unique and innovative customised products for the agriculture sector. It will help us give farmers personalised advisory at farm level, he said in the statement.