Digitising and Remote Sensing Services

Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is an executive agency of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) that is responsible for annual payments of over £2 billion in direct aid and rural development to farmers, land managers and food producers in England. Primary business activities this contract will deliver are around the provision of a flexible workforce and use of remote sensing techniques for: Controls, compliance and monitoring – Enforcing statutory environmental conditions and verifying subsidy scheme claims by remotely inspecting land through the use of computer aided photo interpretation (CAPI) and/ or machine learning techniques. Land registration and digitising – Creation and maintenance of geospatial data products that are used as key controls or reference data against which subsidy scheme claims are cross-checked. Land registration service is administered by the RPA and the data is used extensively by DEFRA and outside the subsidy arena.