Agri-Insight Service Bundle
One of the largest global challenges is to produce enough food for the ever growing world’s population. Small farms in Africa and Asia produce roughly half of the global food and also have the largest opportunity, by far, to increase their yield. Most of them rely solely on annual precipitation, making shifting weather patterns, climate change, and pests and diseases major risks that often cause low yields. Knowledge about the weather, current crop status, future risks, and how to mitigate them is therefore crucial for successful farm management and consistently higher yields.
Weather Impact and Satelligence combined their strengths in agri-meteorology and satellite remote sensing and created the Agri-Insight Service Bundle. These bundled information services provide farmers and the broader agricultural sector with insights to increase production efficiency while reducing risks at the same time. The following services are included in the Agri-Insights Service Bundle:
- Daily agri-weather forecast, to inform about upcoming weather up to 7 days ahead resulting in efficiently planned farming activities;
- Daily Fall Army Worm (FAW) alert, to receive timely risk warnings for FAW resulting in effective precautionary measures. Our FAW Alert recently won a World Bank Innovation Challenge (link: https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2020/03/09/agriculture-risk-innovation-challenge);
- Weekly crop growth indicator, to keep track of crop growth resulting in early indication of over-/under-production.
“The FAW Alert indicates regions with increased risk for Fall Armyworm (FAW) infestation in the coming week and is based on satellite remote sensing data, weather forecasting, and FAW ground observations.”
Next to these three services, other specialized services can be added to the bundle on request, such as a seasonal outlook, farming advisories (for example, “when to plant?”) or other pest and disease warnings. From June 1st 2020, the Agri-Insight Service Bundle is operational in three countries: Ghana, Kenya, and Myanmar, with easy extension to other African or South-East Asian countries.
The service bundle is accessible through an easy-to-use web-API and is delivered both as data (e.g. for business intelligence) and as textual messages (e.g. for direct communication with farmers). For example, the weather forecast message is designed to not exceed 160 characters and always fits into one SMS.
The world is counting on small-scale farmers for our food production. Let’s work together and take action to support these farmers to increase their yield in a sustainable manner. For more information or enquiries, please contact Femke Dekker (dekker@satelligence.com) or Stefan Ligtenberg (stefan.ligtenberg@weatherimpact.com).
