Using remote sensing to check area aid applications
Council Regulation No 3508/92 establishes an integrated administration and control system for certain Community aid schemes, and allows the use of remote sensing to check area aid applications for cultivated and forage areas. A group of Member States including Austria, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden and the UK have published an invitation to tender for a contractor to verify by remote sensing the area aid applications submitted each year by farmers. Depending on the Member State, satellite images and/or aerial photographs will be used. The selected contractor will receive a sample of area aid dossiers to control. The contractor must compare these applications with the images or aerial photographs and deliver the results per dossier to the competent authority in the Member State, accompanied where necessary with all documentation, especially cartographic, to permit areas to be located and verified on site. These satellite images will be acquired by the Commission and delivered to the contractors. Tender documents may be obtained from the Agricultural Ministries in the Member States involved, or by file transfer from the following location from 20 November 1998: ftp://sisws4.ais.sai.jre.it/public/rscontrol