Training workshop on satellite remote sensing-supported crop mapping and associated field data collection

Background

The UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 (“zero hunger”) aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. The Government of Nepal (GoN) recognizes 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 its implications for food production and food security. Whether during times of world food shortages, or during periods of surplus, monitoring and estimating crop acreage requires long-term efforts. The Sustainable Development Goals (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.

To adopt new technologies in food security assessments, the Statistics Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) and ICIMOD’s SERVIR Hindu Kush Himalaya (SERVIR-HKH) Initiative are codeveloping an operational service for crop area and yield estimation using remote sensing and machine learning.

Capacity building of agriculture professionals in the use of new technologies is a priority area to keep research aligned with recent technological developments. Earth Observation (EO) technologies have tremendous potential to support the implementation of long-term and large-scale research and development programmes and for resolving the data and information gaps in the agriculture sector – status and changes in land use, agricultural production, and resilience for food security, among many other aspects.

In this context, MoALD, in collaboration with ICIMOD and the World Food Programme (WFP), is organizing a three-day training workshop on satellite remote sensing supported crop mapping and associated field data collection processes on 02–04 March 2021 in Chitwan, Nepal.