Resource

Strengthening agricultural decisions in countries at risk of food insecurity: The GEOGLAM Crop Monitor for Early Warning

Authors: Inbal Becker-Reshef, Christina Justice, Brian Barker, Michael Humber, Rogerio Bonifacio, Mario Zappacosta, Mike Budde, Tamuka Magadzire, Jonathan Pound, Alessandro Constantino, Catherine Nakalembe, Felix Rembold, Chris Shitote, Kenneth Mwangi, Shinichi Sobue, Terence Newby, Alyssa Whitcraft, Ian Jarvis, James Verdin
Date: 2019

Abstract:

The Crop Monitor approach brings together international experts from national, regional, and global monitoring systems, space agencies, agriculture organizations, and universities, that can share and discuss information from a variety of independent yet complementary sources, enabling them to reach a consensus on global crop conditions. These activities are conducted in line with the GEOGLAM Framework with the goal of enhancing the availability of food production information within the context of commodities markets and early warning of production shortfalls. The development of the monthly Crop Monitor reports is carried out at the end of the month and begins ten days before the publication date, (first Thursday of the month), in order to ensure the timeliness of the information. Partner organizations submit crop condition information using the common crop condition classification system using the web-based interface, a custom version of the Crop Monitoring Exploring Tool, based on their own data sources and decision support systems. The web-based interface provides up to date key EO data products for agricultural monitoring along with crop condition plots of EO data, and contextual information on crop spatial extent (Crop Masks) and crop growth stages (Crop Calendars) at the sub-national level.