Field orientation and data collection for wheat crop mapping using EO technology

About the training

The GIS and Statistics Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD), Nepal and ICIMOD’s SERVIR Hindu Kush Himalaya (SERVIR-HKH) Initiative are co-developing an operational service using remote sensing and machine learning for 1) crop area and yield estimation and 2) to establish information service to facilitate the data and knowledge communication among the relevant departments and broader user community. This will help in designing and imparting specialised trainings on agricultural planning, crop mapping, flood inundation assessment, and drought monitoring for field level staff as well as for central professionals.

The SERVIR-HKH Initiative, a joint initiative of ICIMOD, USAID and NASA, is working on developing information services using Earth Observation (EO) and climate modelling technology. One of the key priority areas under this initiative is the capacity building of agriculture professionals on the use of new technologies to keep research aligned with recent technological developments. EO technologies have tremendous potential to support the implementation of long-term and large-scale research and development programmes and resolve data and information gaps in the agriculture sector, which include status and changes in land use, agricultural production, and resilience for food security, among many other aspects.

As part of crop area estimation and capacity building work, we are organising a training in collaboration with MoALD on field orientation and data collection.

Objectives

The training aims to provide agriculture professionals from MoALD with better understanding of:

• Methodology for field data collection and the use of field data collection mobile application (Geofairy)
• Collecting field data from the municipalities of Rupendehi District for wheat crop mapping

Expected participants

A total 10 MoALD officials will be participating in this training.

Resource persons

MoALD

• Chet Bahadur Roka, Senior Statistics Officer, Chief of Agriculture GIS Section
• Richa Shah, Agri-Economist

ICIMOD

• Rajesh Bahadur Thapa, Senior Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Specialist
• Sravan Shrestha, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Associate

Background

The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: “Zero hunger” aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. The Government of Nepal (GoN) recognises the prevailing situation of food insecurity across the country and attaches high importance to ensuring food security for all. However, there is a need to build upon significant capacity in food security planning, monitoring and evaluation within the GoN to enable it to provide reliable and timely information to support planning and policy decision making processes.

Monitoring and estimating crop acreage at a national scale is required to determine the national or sub-national food demand and supply balance, and to gauge food security. Whether during times of world food shortages, or during periods of surplus, monitoring and estimating crop acreage requires long-term efforts. The SDGs also include doubling productivity and incomes of smallholders as key targets. Estimates and forecasts of crop area and yield are of critical importance to policy makers for the planning of agricultural production and monitoring of food supply. The operational use of open-source satellite-based and model information to monitor climate and crops at daily and seasonal levels for integrated analysis of crop performance provides a cost-effective means to support decision making processes.

Agenda