Abstract
In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the demand for timely, comprehensive global agricultural intelligence. Timely information on global crop production is indispensable for combating the growing stress on the world’s crop production and for securing both short-term and long-term stable and reliable supply of food. Global agriculture monitoring systems are critical to providing this kind of intelligence and global earth observations are an essential component of an effective global agricultural monitoring system as they offer timely, objective, global information on croplands distribution, crop development and conditions as the growing season progresses. The Global Agriculture Monitoring Project (GLAM), a joint NASA, USDA, UMD and SDSU initiative, has built a global agricultural monitoring system that provides the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) with timely, easily accessible, scientifically-validated remotely-sensed data and derived products as well as data analysis tools, for crop-condition monitoring and production assessment. This system is an integral component of the USDA’s FAS Decision Support System (DSS) for agriculture. It has significantly improved the FAS crop analysts’ ability to monitor crop conditions, and to quantitatively forecast crop yields through the provision of timely, high-quality global earth observations data in a format customized for FAS alongside a suite of data analysis tools. FAS crop analysts use these satellite data in a ‘convergence of evidence’ approach with meteorological data, field reports, crop models, attaché reports and local reports. The USDA FAS is currently the only operational provider of timely, objective crop production forecasts at the global scale. These forecasts are routinely used by the other US Federal government agencies as well as by commodity trading companies, farmers, relief agencies and foreign governments. This paper discusses the operational components and new developments of the GLAM monitoring system as well as the future role of earth observations in global agricultural monitoring.
Highlights
Global agricultural production faces increasing pressure from more frequent and extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and frosts; changes in the amounts, seasonality, intensity and distribution of precipitation; rising energy costs; civil conflicts; continued population growth; a growing meat demand from an expanding middle class; and land degradation [1]
Federal government agencies including the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Congress, the State Department, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) as well as by commodity trading companies, farmers, relief agencies and foreign governments. These production estimates play a vital role within the global agricultural market as they are utilized in a variety of ways including: official US Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics, principal federal economic indicators, crop condition and early warning alerts, agricultural monitoring and food security, foreign aid assessments for food import needs, disaster monitoring and relief efforts related to food aid, commercial market trends and analysis, and trade policy and exporter assistance
The primary goals of this collaborative project are to continue to advance the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Decision Support System with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) data and expertise, establish a USDA Data Processing System at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), and prototype the operational pathway for data from NPOESS Visible Infrared Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) to ensure operational, long-term data continuity for FAS. These goals are being achieved through the provision of timely, reliable, high-quality earth observations data that are composited and mosaicked according to the FAS regions of interests; an extensive and consistent MODIS Vegetation Index data archive which enables analysts to perform quantitative analysis for crop condition assessment and yield forecasting; long-term data archives of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and SPOT VI data; a variety of customized data analysis tools which allow analysts to query and aggregate the time series data according to sub-national units and analyst-specified areas; crop masks that are integrated into the analysis tools; and MODIS rapid response data, available twice daily within four hours of overpass
Summary
Global agricultural production faces increasing pressure from more frequent and extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and frosts; changes in the amounts, seasonality, intensity and distribution of precipitation; rising energy costs; civil conflicts; continued population growth (despite a decrease in the global growth rate); a growing meat demand from an expanding middle class; and land degradation [1]. Global agricultural production output continues to grow, these pressures place increasing strain on society’s ability to provide an adequate and safe supply of food for an increasing global population. There are a large number of operational national and international agricultural monitoring systems operating at a range of scales providing critical agricultural information. The primary international monitoring systems include the USAID Famine Early Warning System (FEWS-NET), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), the Monitoring Agriculture by Remote Sensing (MARS) Project of the European Commission, at the Joint Research Center The USDA FAS is currently the only provider of regular, timely, objective crop production forecasts at the global scale. This unique capability is in part afforded by the USDA’s partnership with. NASA through the GLAM project, which provides global coverage of earth observations data and analysis tools for crop condition monitoring and production assessment at the global scale [3]
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