The use of Earth Observation data for agricultural condition monitoring at sub-national scale in Argentina
Abstract
Agricultural condition monitoring is critical in managing the risks associated with local, regional and national food systems. Argentina is one of the biggest agricultural producer in South America, covering a large latitudinal gradient with multiple distinct agroecological sub-regions that span across political boundaries. The Agricultural Estimates Department of the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange (BAGE), a non-profit organization from Argentina, has been providing independent and publicly available estimates of crop area, yield and production since 2000. The institution calculates their production and area estimation, by subdividing ten Argentinean provinces that are cultivated with the main crops (soybean, corn, wheat, sunflower, barley and sorghum) in fifteen agroecological sub-regions. The study of agroecological sub-regions provides a detailed approach for understanding production pattern and weather effects, especially in large countries with very different agroecological characteristics. The Grains Exchange, in collaboration with the University of Maryland and as a partner of the NASA Harvest Consortium, is developing a novel approach, combining different Earth Observation (EO) data sets, such as satellite-derived NDVI, cumulative precipitation, precipitation, minimum temperatures, maximum temperature, evaporative stress index, soil moisture (surface), and growing degrees days with ground observations, such as crop phenological stages and crop calendars, to forecast crop yields and crop conditions. Our results show the promise of EO data in timely forecasting of crop conditions across a range of crops and agroecological zones. As a second step, the objective is to analyze the data by sub-region and to add other variables into the analysis, such as management variables (quantity of inputs for producing in different sub-regions), sustainability (no-till practices, crop rotation and cover crops) and potentially economic variables (cost of production).
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMGC23H1457S
- Keywords:
-
- 0402 Agricultural systems;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 1632 Land cover change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1640 Remote sensing;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES