A brief news item in The BBC reported that Kazakhstan is planning to use state-of-the-art satellite technology to conquer an age-old crop problem: locusts.
Locusts are apparently a severe problem in Kazakhstan. The only solution is to apply pesticides to crops to kill the locusts. The problem with that approach, however, is that pesticides are expensive.
To reduce the amount of pesticides that will have to be applied to crops, the Kazakhstan Space Research Institute signed an agreement the Canadian company, Radar Sat International, to use satellite data to predict which areas are most likely to be hit by locust attacks.
According to Radar Sat International, using a combination of meteorological and soil data should allow areas at high risk of locusts to be pinpointed, and the amount of pesticides needed reduced by as much as 60 percent.
Source:
Kazakh locusts tracked by satellite. The BBC, May 8, 2001.