Designing AfriCultuReS services to support food security in Africa

Abstract

Earth Observation (EO) data are increasingly being used to monitor vegetation and detect plant growth anomalies due to water stress, drought, or pests, as well as to monitor water availability, weather conditions, disaster risks, land-use/land-cover changes and to evaluate soil degradation. Satellite data are provided regularly by worldwide organizations, covering a wide variety of spatial, temporal and spectral characteristics. In addition, climate and crop growth models provide early estimates of the expected weather patterns and yield, which can be improved by fusion with EO data. The project "AfriCultuReS" is capitalizing on the above to contribute towards an integrated agricultural monitoring and early warning system for Africa, supporting decision making in the field of food security. The aim of this paper is to present the design of EO services within the project, and how they will support food security in Africa. The designed services cover the users' requirements related to climate, drought, land, livestock, crops, water, and weather. For each category of services, results from one case study are presented. The services will be distributed to the stakeholders and are expected to provide a continuous monitoring framework for early and accurate assessment of factors affecting food security in Africa.

The Impact of Climate Variability and Change on Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa: Perspective from Panel Data Analysis

“…Climate, drought, land, livestock, crops, water, and weather are all covered by the services created for users. The services will be offered to stakeholders and serve as a continuous monitoring framework for early and accurate assessment of factors affecting food security in Africa [135]. Such initiatives are critical to helping Africa combat the adverse effects of climate change on food security.…”

Using sentinel-2 observations to assess the consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown on winter cropping in Bothaville and Harrismith, South Africa

“…Nevertheless, as a well-established SVI, NDVI based on Sentinel-2 images provided a quick assessment of historical winter planted areas, thus providing essential insights into the consequences of COVID-19 on agriculture and food security. It is anticipated that ongoing projects such as the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project AfriCultuReS (Enhancing Food Security in African Agricultural Systems with the Support of Remote Sensing) -aiming to design, implement and demonstrate integrated agricultural monitoring and early warning decision support system using EO-based products, crowd-sensing, meteorological and climate forecasts (Alexandridis et al 2020) -will aid rapid assessment of the impact of policies on food security in Africa.…”

Global Trends on Food Security Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…Starting from the definition of food security, the mainstream view holds that the countermeasures and suggestions for food security should be based on three pillars-supply, access, and use. From the perspective of food supply, improvements should be made in agricultural production techniques to increase food production and quality and to facilitate food storage and trade flows, including providing diversified fertilizers and crop varieties, improving irrigation methods [42][43][44], developing appropriate agricultural scale operations [45], providing agricultural credits to promote agricultural production and increase grain production [41], supporting small-scale farmers to integrate organically with modern agriculture [117], paying attention to aquaculture [43], expanding grain storage and logistics facilities [118], and improving the international food security trade order [48,92]. In terms of access to food, poverty has been identified as the root cause of food insecurity, and access to food should be made more affordable by increasing people's income [16]-including through enhanced agricultural incentives, poverty reduction, and social security programs [40,119]-and by increasing nonfarm employment [41,120].…”

“…Third, grain consumption habits should be changed to adapt to the severe food security environment. Specific proposals include strengthening agricultural stimulus policies, as well as poverty reduction and social security schemes [40]; providing agricultural credit and increasing off-farm employment [41]; providing a variety of fertilizers, crop varieties, and irrigation methods [42][43][44]; developing appropriate agricultural scale operations [45]; optimizing the composition of residents' diets, reducing food waste; adjusting the composition of grain consumption [46,47]; and increasing the convenience of the grain trade [48].…”