(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 2. The United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the University
of Maryland (UMD)/NASA Harvest have been working in partnership on
a pilot project to test remote sensing-based agricultural
monitoring and refine its applicability in Kazakhstan, trend reports via the
FAO.
According to FAO, this method can provide valuable
insights into crop conditions and production prospects in
Kazakhstan.
Along with Kazakhstan, the project is being
implemented in Malawi and Namibia and is funded by the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The goal of the project is to provide actors in the
agriculture sector with advance insights into crop conditions and
production prospects. The project team is using a suite of remote
sensing-based tools that are intended to help monitor crop
conditions and production prospects.
During the presentation of the preliminary results of
the pilot project in Astana, FAO showcased a new crop map of the
spring wheat crop in Kazakhstan, which is the main cereal grown in
the country.
The map was produced using methods developed by the
UMD/NASA Harvest and is intended to assist the government in
monitoring wheat crop conditions.
Furthermore, FAO also spoke of a yield forecast model
that is trained on global datasets but tweaked to capture the
specificities of Kazakhstan's agricultural system. The model can
produce wheat yield forecasts in advance of the harvest period,
giving early indications of potential production outcomes, and
providing actors in the agricultural sector time to respond
effectively to bumper outputs as well as low harvests, for example,
to mitigate adverse effects.
The meeting participants, including representatives of
Kazakhstan's Ministry of Agriculture and a selection of GIS experts
from universities to startups, were receptive to the results of the
pilot project and interested in collaborating with FAO.
Several institutions cited their eagerness to use this
type of data, which indicates the potential for this method to be
adopted more widely in the future.
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