Global Agriculture Monitoring

Food demand will dramatically increase in the next thirty years with rising global population.

New demands require large-scale intelligence capabilities to manage food production with targeted intensification while minimizing environmental impact.

Land cover change detection methods can give an account of changing environmental impacts and food production yields by monitoring agricultural land-use.

Land-cover changes including

Change in yield (crop failures, etc)

shifting cropping patterns (multiple crops, change in crop, inter cropping)

local food availability (delay in harvest)

gives policymakers and organizations necessary information for crisis response, agricultural development, and mitigation of climate change effects.

Zambia: Industrial-scale farming The establishment of

intensive farming operations affects the resources available to maintain local ecosystems.

Land-cover change detection algorithms have the capability of predicting food availability by monitoring the conversion to farms and farm abandonment.

Figure on right shows conversion to intensive agriculture in 2005.

“Zambeef Gallary,” Source: http://www.zambeefplc.com/gallery/.

Zimbabwe: Agriculture and Policy Human land-use is subject

to political and economic factors.

Land-cover change detection algorithms have the capability of identifying large-scale agricultural land-use changes corresponding to changing local policies.

280 farmers forced to abandon farms in Zimbabwe during political conflict between 2004 and 2008. Government seized 32,000 acres total from Reinier van Rensburg (pictured right) near Lion's Den.

Figure on the right shows farm abandonment in 2005.

“Zimbabwe's last white farmer forced to quit,” Source: Telegraph.co.uk, 2008.