The Neural Banana Forecast

Published on 10 November 2016 by Saskia van Pelt

Weather Impact submitted an innovative idea to the World Banks’ big data innovation challenge (link to: https://bigdatainnovationchallenge.org/) for food security.

As banana production is highly sensitive to temperature and rainfall fluctuations, it will be affected by rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns. We have therefore developed the Banana Network. This innovative model is based on an artificial neural network and trained using big data on global weather and banana production. It provides local producers with reliable information on their estimated yields and can be used to assess banana productivity in a warming climate. The model uses open source big data and is scalable to local levels. Are you interested to know more about our activities using big data and artificial intelligence to determine climate risks for food security? Please contact us.