|
|
EU global action webinar
AfriCultuReS participated in the EU space data in action: supporting sustainable economic growth & a greener future for Africa webinar that was held on May 19 with presentations from Clarisse Kagoyire (on index-based crop insurance in Rwanda), Derick Ongeri / Vivianne Meta (on avocado production monitoring in Kenya) and Juan Suarez (on the future of AfriCultuReS).
A follow-up webinar in French was held on May 31: l’Afrique et les donnes spatiales Europeénnes, with presentations from Evence Zoungrana on the use of Copernicus data for agricultural monitoring in Tunisia and Zakari Abdourahamane on remote sensing for livestock management in Niger.
Presentation Zakari Abdourahamane
At the follow-up webinar in French that was held on May 31, l’Afrique et les donnes spatiales Europeénnes, Zakari Abdourahamane gave a presentation on remote sensing for livestock management in Niger.
Click on the picture below to see the presentation.
Presentation Evence Zoungrana
At the follow-up webinar in French that was held on May 31, l’Afrique et les donnes spatiales Europeénnes, Evence Zoungrana gave a presentation on the use of Copernicus data for agricultural monitoring in Tunisia.
Click on the picture below to see the presentation.
Presentation Juan Suarez
At the webinar that was held on May 19 Juan Suarez gave a presentation on the future of AfriCultuReS.
Click on the picture below to see the presentation.
Presentation Clarisse Kagoyire
At the webinar that was held on May 19 Clarisse Kagoyire gave a presentation on index-based crop insurance in Rwanda.
Click on the picture below to see the presentation.
Presentation Derick Ongeri and Vivianne Meta
At the webinar that was held on May 19 Derick Ongeri and Vivianne Meta gave a presentation on avocado production monitoring in Kenya.
Click on the picture below to see the presentation.
Embedding Earth observation initiatives in localised contexts for financial sustainability – involving smallholder food producers and local governments
These are the main takeaways from the panel discussion of the GEO week side-event organised by the Geodata for Agriculture and Water Facility (G4AW – Netherlands Space Office), and the AfriCultuReS and TWIGA Horizon2020 projects, with presentations from Frank Annor, Lilian Benzid, Akua Benewaa and Mango Mbambi :
- Co-design: involve key partners from the start;
- Make use of rural entrepreneurship;
- As we deal with data driven-solutions, use local service
providers;
- The best strategy for scaling depends very much on the
type of service offered;
- Licence-to-operate and (often) commitment from the
government is essential;
- Make use of reliable local actors and/or integrators for
local embedding (e.g. TAHMO with weather stations
at schools);
- Show impact of Earth observation and data-driven
solutions (cost-saving, time saving, improved
decision-making, etc.);
- Develop standard products / services that can be easily
replicated in other countries / regions (and make use of
a common platform).
A recording of the whole event is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYAE4q0ynrQ and you can find a compilation of the presentations here.
GEO virtual symposium 21 - 24 June 2021
Have a look at the presentations of the AfriCultuReS use cases from Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa here.
To watch the full recording of the AfriCultuReS session at the GEO symposium click here.
Presentation on AfriCultuReS flood mapping product at EGU 2021
Cherif, I., Ovakoglou, G., Alexandridis, T. K., Mensah, F., and Garba, I.
Near real time high resolution mapping of flood extent in west African sites,
EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-15170
To the abstract of the presentation
Presentation Nosi Mashiyi
Click on the picture below for the link to Nosi Mashiyi’s presentation on the AfriCultuReS decision support system on Amazon web services, delivered at the GEO Virtual Symposium 2020.
Tele-training by OSS
OSS organised a “Tele-training on operational modelling of wheat growth and its yield estimate” within the framework of the AfriCultuReS and GMES-Africa projects in partnership with the CNCT (National Center for Mapping and Remote Sensing) - ONAGRI (National Observatory of Agriculture) and INRGREF (National Institute for Research in Rural Engineering, Water and Forests), from 20 to 22 April 2020.
Fourth progress meeting
The fourth AfriCultuReS project meeting was held in Kigali, Rwanda on November 21 and 22, 2019, in conjunction with the AfricaGIS conference. Maize, wheat, potatoes and sorghum were selected as number one priority crops, while cassava, millet, rice and sugarcane where indicated as second priority crops. In addition to these crops, grasslands will be added for livestock and rangeland management.
Other topics for discussion were the AfriCultuReS methodology, the combination of satellite and in situ data, validation and calibration, data fusion and services federation, the AfriCultuReS IT platform, the business model and capacity development.
Services in development (poster GEO week Canberra, Australia)
Grant for AfriCultuReS
The H2020 AfriCultuReS project has been awarded by GEO (Group on Earth Observations) and AWS (Amazon Web Services) under the Amazon Sustainability Date Initiative with cloud services to provide Earth observation services in support of food security in Africa. The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) will coordinate the initiative titled “AfriCultuReS Decision Support System (ADSS) Community Version”.
AfriCultuReS as GEO community activity
AfriCultuReS is accepted as a community activity in the 2020 – 2022 Work Programme of the Group on Earth Observations.
https://www.earthobservations.org/geoss_wp.php
This provides a very good opportunity to stimulate the development of concrete Earth observation-based solutions for food security in Africa through international cooperation.
Ground Truth week 2019
Mark Noort (HCP) participated in the closing panel of the Ground Truth 2.0 week in Delft, the Netherlands on October 4, 2019, and stressed the importance of making use of citizens’ observatories and the methodology developed and lessons learned of Ground Truth 2.0 in the AfriCultuReS project.
Europe’s eyes in the sky
“Europe’s eyes in the sky are helping to solve energy, land-use problems in Africa”
is the title of an article (by Aisling Irwin) in Horizon magazine, in which AfriCultuReS participants Juan Suárez, Issa Garba and Mark Noort give their views on achieving food security in Africa with the help of satellite data.
Third project meeting
The project partners met in Thessaloniki, Greece, on May 20 and 21 to discuss future plans. Seven main service categories were identified:
Second project meeting
The AfriCultuReS project held its second progress meeting in November 2018 in Pretoria, South Africa, organised by SANSA.
The meeting focused on the analysis of user needs that were identified in the regional stakeholder requirement workshops and how to match these with technical solutions based on satellite information to achieve maximum impact for food security.
First project meeting
The AfriCultuReS project held its first project meeting at the premises of the coordinator, GMV, near Madrid, Spain, on April 19 and 20. Apart from progress during the first six months of the project and technical aspects, the discussions focussed on cross-cutting issues, such as climate change, user needs and gender. Now it is time to start the development of solutions that contribute to food security for the eight project regions in Africa, which will be tested first in the form of pilot projects. We will keep you posted on developments!
Food Security Thematic Exploitation Platform
Juan Suárez presented the AfriCultuReS project during the 2nd workshop of the Food Security Thematic Exploitation Platform, FS-TEP, an initiative supported by ESA (held in Frascati, Italy, from March 5 -7).
Juan stressed the importance of involving all stakeholders: with its strong presence in Africa and participation of African partners, AfriCultuReS can cooperate with the FS-TEP partners in pilot cases and applications.
His Excellency
Dr. Seleshi Bekele
The Honourable Minister indicated that food security and agriculture are among the most pressing priorities for Africa. Many Ethiopians depend on agriculture and it is the most important economic activity. Agriculture, however, faces a number of challenges: developmental, environmental and disasters, such as drought and erratic rainfall. A concerted effort of all stakeholders is needed to successfully achieve sustainable agricultural development.
Opening by Dr. Franz Immler
Dr. Franz Immler opened the AfriCultuReS project on behalf of EASME and DG RTD Earth observation section
(Directorate-General for Research and Innovation).
He highlighted the main elements of the H2020 programme (the Research and Innovation programme of the European Union that runs from 2014 to 2020), with its three pillars of excellent science, industrial leadership and societal challenges, and the division of responsibilities with respect to supervision and support of implementation.
The importance of food security
Dr. Ouattara outlined the importance of food security for Africa. The AfriCultuReS project is therefore very relevant.
The approach of AfriCultuReS is innovative, by involving the end-users and stakeholders. In the past 20 years the Earth observation community has worked too much in isolation.
AfriCultuReS has started!
The kick-off meeting was held in Addis Ababa on November 23 and 24, 2017, organized jointly by GMV, the project coordinator, and GeoSAS, the host.
There were opening speeches of His Excellency Dr. Seleshi Bekele, Minister of Water, Irrigation and Electricity of Ethiopia, Dr. Franz Immler, Head of the sector Climate Action of the Executive Agency for SMEs of the European Commission, and Dr. Tidiane Outtara, Head of the GMES & Africa Support Programme Unit of the African Union.
See also:
Supporting farmers in Africa with European Earth Observation technology
GMES and AFRICA participates in AfriCultuReS H2020 kick-off meeting
AfriCultuReS in the EuroGEOSS launch
The AfriCultuReS project was presented as one of the example projects in the EuroGEOSS launch event that was organized in the week of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), held in Washington DC from October 23 – 26, 2017.
Professor Pierre Defourny of the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium highlighted AfriCultuReS in his presentation on the EuroGEOSS agricultural pilot.
More information on EuroGEOSS
