History

Every year, La Financière agricole du Québec insures more than 1.4 million hectares of crops. To determine the amount of an assessment and, if applicable, of compensation, methods for measuring insured areas must be as accurate as possible.

Different approaches have been used over the years to valuate areas: declarations made by clients, measuring methods using bicycles, motorcycles, GPS, aerial photographs and pedometers, the most common technique.

In 1994, a new way to measure insured fields using geomatics was introduced: computer-assisted land measurement. It makes it possible for La Financière agricole to:

• measure agricultural land 12 months a year;
• increase productivity (27 hectares/hour rather than 3 with the pedometer);
• guarantee better accuracy (a ±3% margin of error rather than ±10%);
• reduce costs ($1.50/hectare rather than $7.30 with the pedometer);
• produce quality farm plans;
• establish an agricultural land data base; and
• produce an interactive cartography application: the Electronic Farm Plan.

Today, geomatics is used to meet an array of different data management and analysis needs.