The Use of Remote Sensing Technologies in Agricultural Statistics in the Americas

Agriculture is an indispensable sector for the economies of the Latin American region. Agriculture not only provides basic products and food security for the families of small producers, but also countries in the region depend on agricultural products in their export matrix. Being able to measure how much and where it is produced is essential when designing budgets and policies for both aid and incentives for producers. Agricultural statistics systems at the national level vary greatly from one country to another, in some cases being carried out by different decentralized agencies and based on field surveys that, in addition to being costly, are sometimes limited by different natural conditions (impediments to access some rural areas for example). In other cases, the agricultural statistical systems are coordinated by the national government through monthly and annual publications of area and yield (production) estimates at the national and provincial levels. To carry out these periodic statistics, the specialists not only use field surveys but also work with other ministries specialized in satellite images (as in many cases, the INIAS). The use of satellite image tools is a complement that provides objective, frequent and relatively cheap information that, after being analyzed and included in the monthly harvest estimates, is a valuable tool when making decisions with agility, such as providing food aid to certain regions (when crop monitoring estimates that production will be drastically reduced), plan incentive policies, among others. Given this heterogeneity in the use of remote sensing tools, the present work seeks to make a compilation by country with the state of agricultural statistics on the one hand, and the use of remote sensing tools in them. This analysis will facilitate the efficient use of resources in the efforts made by the countries to improve their agricultural statistics systems using remote sensing.