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

According to the United Nations' 2018 Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, the number of undernourished people worldwide increased for the third year in a row in 2017, reaching 821 million (FAO et al., 2018). Prior to 2014, this figure had been on the decline and this recent slow in hunger reduction jeopardizes the United Nations' goal of eradicating hunger by 2030, as specified in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2: Zero Hunger. While there are numerous factors contributing to the increase in global hunger, the main drivers include climate variability and climate extremes leading to acute food crises (Ray et al., 2015). Existing literature suggests climate change will exacerbate nutrient deficiency among those populations already most vulnerable to food insecurity (e.g. Wheeler and Von Braun, 2013; Schmidhuber and Tubiello, 2007). According to a recent report of the Global Commission on Adaptation (Bapna et al., 2019) out of 5 investment areas with the highest potential return for climate adaptation, Early Warning Systems are the area with the highest benefit-cost ratio (10:1). Unfortunately adaptation to climate change is challenging in environments characterized by the predominance of low yielding varieties, limited access to inputs (seeds, fertilizer, etc.), and lack of irrigation infrastructure. In these same environments, human and instrumental networks necessary for timely climate hazard and crop monitoring are not fully in place, which adds the risk of tardy detection and delayed response to that of the agricultural vulnerability. In the absence of established in situ networks for monitoring crop conditions locally, Earth observations (EO) data provide an affordable, reliable, and timely source of data which can be used as indicators of crop conditions and production across spatial and temporal scales (Rembold et al., 2010).

BECKER-RESHEF Inbal;  JUSTICE Christina;  BARKER Brian;  HUMBER Micheal;  REMBOLD Felix;  BONIFACIO Rogerio;  ZAPPACOSTA Mario;  BUDDE Mike;  MAGADZIRE Tamuka;  SHITOTE Chris;  POUND Jonathan;  CONSTANTINO Alessandro;  NAKALEMBE Catherine Lilian;  MWANGI Kenneth;  SOBUE Shin-Ichi;  NEWBY Terence;  WHITCRAFT Alyssa;  JARVIS Ian;  VERDIN Jim; 

2020-09-28

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC

JRC118727

0034-4257 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425719305735?via%3Dihub,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC118727,   

10.1016/j.rse.2019.111553 (online),