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The agricultural sector, which in many ways is still trundling along as it has for centuries, is about to get an upgrade from modern technology in the form of a satellite that will monitor the country’s food supply .

The Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) and the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Lapan) have agreed to develop a satellite to benefit the agricultural sector, an officials said on Tuesday.

The institute’s rector, Herry Suhardiyanto, said the sector had long neglected the use of technology, especially as part of a national approach to planning.

He said the satellite would allow for increased predictability in areas such as the best harvest times and production estimates, which are currently still based on less accurate traditional methods.

However, Herry said, this project is not just about reliably predicting the nation’s total grain production.

“The nation also needs technology that can monitor all of the country’s rice fields, mapping their growth and harvest time, noting which areas have good production and which need more attention,” he said.

In short, he said, satellite technology would allow officials to know the real-time condition of the nation’s food supply and security.

The IPB is also looking to modernize the way the agricultural sector is run, and information from the satellite will play an important role in that, he said.

Tuesday marked the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the institute and the space agency. Their plan is to launch the Lapan-IPB satellite in 2014.

For Lapan, the satellite will be the fourth constructed by local engineers and researchers. The agency is currently putting the finishing touches on two other satellites that will be put into orbit in the middle of next year.

Robertus Heru Triharjanto, head of Lapan’s satellite bus division, said the Lapan-IPB satellite, named Lisat, would carry a camera equipped with specific filters that could identify objects related to agriculture, such as the types of plant, their ages and surrounding temperatures

Heru said Lisat would be in orbit above the country at least twice a day — at a height of 650 kilometers — capturing the necessary images, with rice fields as its priority. The data will be transferred to ground stations for analysis by relevant departments, led by IPB.

“The satellite will supply information about the areas where the paddy fields are ready for harvesting and which must wait another month,” he said. “Such data will allow us to know where there will be a surplus and where extra assistance is needed. This information is very important for our policy makers — for the subsidy policy, for instance — and for [the country’s] overall food security.”

The head of IPB’s Department of Physics, Irzaman, said the government had allotted Rp 180 billion ($19.3 million) for the project over a 10-year period. That included formatting the Lisat road map, which was completed last year.

Herry said he was optimistic data from the satellite would improve the ability to manage the nation’s food supply. “It will give us more precise information on harvest periods, which will lead to more accurate predictions about such things as rice prices. This will benefit our farmers.”

Heru said about 30 to 40 engineers were working on the satellites at the moment. He added that while many of the satellite’s components were supplied by European countries, including Germany, the satellite’s design and assembly had all been done by local engineers.

The agency said it would take four years to develop Lisat.

“It takes time. Especially setting up a computer self-recovery system that is necessary to ensure there are no failures in space,” he said. “We’ll have some trials prior to the launch, but once it’s up there, it should be able to handle about 99.99 percent of the things that can go wrong.”

Lapan’s first satellite, Lapan-Tubsat — built in collaboration with the Technical University of Berlin and launched from India in 2007 — is currently watching the country from outer space.