Recommendations from the GEO TASK AG Community of Practice Image: NASA, ASTER Science Team Minnesota Kansas Germany Bolivia Thailand Brazil

Outline Task definition Current Status Workshop recommendations –Future EO systems/data continuity –Data Integration –Data Standards/Quality –Data Policy/Dissemination

GEOSS AG Task The purpose of this Task is to support the development and improvement of Operational Agricultural Monitoring Systems, enhancing the current capabilities in the areas of: – agricultural monitoring –famine early warning –food security

System Functional Components 1. mapping and monitoring of changes in agricultural type and distribution 2. global monitoring of agricultural production, facilitating reduction of risk and increased productivity at a range of scales; 3. accurate and timely national agricultural statistical reporting; 4. accurate forecasting of shortfalls in crop production and food supply; 5.effective early warning of famine, enabling a timely mobilization of an international response in food aid 6.reliable and broadly accepted 5, 10, and 20 year projections of food demand and supply as a function of changing demographics, markets, agricultural practices and climate.

Ag Sub-Tasks Enhancements will be developed in the following three areas: –Global mapping and monitoring of changes in distribution of cropland area and the associated cropping systems –Global monitoring of agricultural production leading to accurate and timely reporting of national agricultural statistics and accurate forecasting of shortfalls in crop production and food supply and facilitating reduction of risk and increased productivity at a range of scales –Effective early warning of famine, enabling a timely mobilization of an international response in food aid The Work Program is being developed under the following five sub tasks: – A Community of Practice Workshop on Crop Acreage Estimation. – Development of coordinated regional experiments on methods inter- comparison and accuracy assessment for enhanced cropland area and crop type mapping and monitoring. – Selected pilot studies integrating EO data within national statistical reporting systems leading to documentation of community guidelines and protocols. – Mapping of croplands at 250m on an annual basis. – Global mapping of agricultural areas at 30m and development of an associated cropping systems data base, undertaken at 5 year intervals for 2005 and – Coordination and implementation of regional capacity building workshops on EO, Agricultural Monitoring and Famine Early Warning.

Currently a number of operational agricultural monitoring systems exist at national, regional and global scales that utilize satellite observations, in-situ data and field survey – these operate independently w. some common data use Pressing need to: –Ensure continuity of the EO data that these systems rely on –Enhance the timeliness and resolution of data –Better assimilate between the different EO data products as well as integrate the EO and in situ data –Identify a standard set of products to be used for agriculture monitoring –Set standards for both in situ and EO data products, collection procedures, metadata, and product accuracy –Work toward an international data policy agreement that includes free and open access to data sets and products Assessed Current Status

GEOSS/IGOL Agricultural Monitoring Workshop July 2007,FAO IGOL/GEO workshop was convened to develop a strategy for global agricultural monitoring in the framework of GEO 47 participants representing 25 national and international organizations attended and established the ‘GEOSS/IGOL Agricultural Monitoring Community of Practice Reviewed the current state of agricultural monitoring and developed a set of priorities and recommendations

Ag Community of Practice Data Related Recommendations to GEO and its Members: Future EO Systems/Data Continuity: GEOSS Secretariat and the Architecture and Data Committee to advocate for CEOS, its member space agencies and working groups to secure the space-borne assets needed for agricultural monitoring with an emphasis on data continuity, reliability and timeliness by working to: –secure operational status for fine resolution sensing systems (10m-50m) extending the 35 years of dynamic data continuity from Landsat and SPOT –Develop and implement within the next 5 to 10 years the next generation of fine resolution sensing systems, to provide an integrated system, acquiring and providing global coverage of 10m cloud free imagery every 5-10 days –Put in place systems to provide moderate resolution data (1km-250m) delivery in near real time or at a minimum within 24 hours of acquisition

Future EO Systems/Data Continuity Recommendations Cont. –Expand operational space programs to ensure continuity of morning and afternoon polar orbiters and the associated validated data products used for agricultural monitoring (e.g. Surface reflectance, Vegetation Indices, Crop Type) Overlap between consecutive missions is required for data continuity and cross calibration Redundancy between missions is desirable to ensure data continuity –Demonstrate and exploit the capability of a global geostationary network of sensors for agricultural monitoring increased spatial resolution of these systems to 500m to increase utility for agriculture –Secure operational status for radar altimetry data, and improving these data’s spatial resolution, targeting and height accuracy –Demonstrate and exploit the capability of data from microwave and thermal sensors for agricultural monitoring and their combination with data from optical sensors

Data Integration Recommendations The GEOSS Secretariat / ADC to support: –Development of an international moderate (30m) resolution data initiative, providing a global data set for the period, from the available international assets. This data set to be derived from multiple data sources would follow the GEOCOVER and MDGLS projects (to be completed by USGS and NASA in 2008) and be used as a basis for developing a database on global agricultural distribution, crop group type and rotation and farming systems. The data set should be made available free of charge It is recommended that CEOS WGISS provide guidance on the necessary acquisition strategy, metadata standards and product interoperability and availability –The GEO Agriculture Community of Practice to advance research and development activities for assimilating satellite earth observations and in situ data –The FAO and its member national agricultural agencies to facilitate the integration of satellite data with traditional agricultural monitoring methods to achieve timely accurate and verifiable reporting of national agriculture statistics –The WMO and its member agencies to improve the availability of meteorological station data and resultant products to enable improved prediction and monitoring of crop conditions and production shortfalls

Data Standards/Quality Recommendations Coordinate with CEOS WGISS for moderate/fine resolution data exchange protocols and metadata standards Facilitate a Global Agricultural Data coordination workshop to address timeliness, availability, quality, and exchange of satellite and in situ data Enhance the quality and availability of in situ data to improve timeliness, accuracy and comprehensiveness of data Facilitate setting standards for agriculture related in situ data collection procedures, national agricultural statistics reporting, and data accuracy

Data Policy and Dissemination Recommendations GEO Secretariat/ADC to work toward an international agreement on and implementation of a data policy that includes free and open access to data sets and products contributed by GEO members’ space agencies toward meeting the objectives of the GEO societal benefit areas such as global agricultural monitoring. The Policy should: –establish non-prohibitive data pricing policies, allowing for free and open sharing of data and enabling affordable regional agricultural monitoring –Adopt equitable pricing policies for moderate resolution data leading to free and open data access and data sharing –Encourage a reduction in price of very fine resolution (1m-10m) data especially for targeting agricultural lands in regions where food security is a priority issue –Help minimize delays in data access, foster wide spatial and temporal data availability of data, promote data sharing and collaboration, and enable integration of earth observations and in situ data The ADC should work with the Ag Community of Practice to review existing data policies, identify barriers to data use for agricultural production monitoring, and develop data product recommendations that maximize access for agricultural production monitoring. Special Attention should be given to enhancing the capacity of developing country data users and collectors

Thank You AG Point of Contact: Chris Justice Inbal Reshef