NASA Harvest News
How Satellite Data Can Help Farmers Capitalize on Regenerative Agriculture
Dr. Alyssa Whitcraft, NASA Harvest Deputy Director, speaks about NASA satellite data applications that can be useful for farmers in making field-level decisions, particularly in the context of the current regenerative agriculture revolution. As we continue to face climate change-induced challenges - such as more frequent droughts, severe weather events, and soil degradation - Earth observation data can play a key role in informing on-farm decisions that build more resilient agricultural systems.
NASA Harvest, in partnership with the University of Maryland, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, the Argentinian Ministry of Education, and the International Development Bank, has launched a training program in Argentina to teach agricultural professionals how to access and analyze the multitude of open access satellite imagery that’s become available over the past several years.
A new study finds that common air pollutants are harming agricultural productivity. Authored by NASA Harvest partners at Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, the research finds that reducing nitrogen oxides could increase crop yields around the globe, and as much as 28% in some regions.
The need for an easily-accessible offline ground data collection method led ESRI and NASA Harvest to collaborate on improvements to the Survey123 mobile application. The resulting HarvestNow app has decreased collection time, improved location accuracy, increased data quantity, and allowed for real time data processing and analysis. Recently deployed on a field campaign in Malawi, Harvest's use case was showcased at the 2022 ESRI User Conference.
People Of Harvest Interview Series: Mahmoud Abouelmakarem
Meet NASA Harvest's Mahmoud Abouelmakarem! Mahmoud is working on Harvest's supply chain initiative, helping develop a tool for the Harvest Portal to analyze and visualize annual food price percent changes. He discusses the importance of helping policymakers better understand supply chains, especially in regards to current food supply and price shocks.
Submit Your Work
NASA Harvest's Mehdi Hosseini is co-editing a special issue in the journal Remote Sensing. Editors for the special issue, Radar Remote Sensing for Monitoring Agricultural Management, are accepting submissions that showcase techniques in agricultural monitoring using radar remote sensing. They are particularly interested in studies that look at management techniques around tillage and irrigation; crop damage and phenological stage assessment; data fusion; and cloud computing processing pipelines. Submissions can include research articles, review articles, short communications, and technical notes. Manuscripts are accepted through May 31, 2023.
The Journal Remote Sensing is accepting manuscripts for the special issue "Monitoring Climate Impacts on Agriculture Using Remote Sensing Techniques." Guest editors Hannah Kerner (NASA Harvest AI Lead) and Laura Harrison (Climate Hazards Center, UCSB) are seeking submissions that "showcase successful recent endeavors in climate impact detection using remote sensing data and to communicate about promising new methods and datasets." The special issue is an opportunity for authors to spread word about their successes in detecting, measuring, and understanding climate impacts on agriculture, using remote sensing data as one of their tools. Manuscripts are accepted through September 15, 2022.
Guest editors from the University of Maryland, including Harvest's Data Lead, Mike Humber, are accepting submissions to their Special Issue "Remote Sensing Applications in Wildfire Research and Management" in the journal Remote Sensing. The editors "aim to collect recent accomplishments in the field of remotely sensed wildfire products, modeling, and monitoring with the hope to inspire further development of fire-related remote sensing methodologies. These works can include developments related to remote-sensing-derived fire products as well as developments in the estimation and understanding of how fire interacts with other variables at the landscape scale, such as fuel build-up, fuel post-fire succession, fire regimes, and vegetation type." Manuscripts are accepted through October 20, 2022.
Frontiers in Remote Sensing is accepting manuscripts for the special issue "Women in Remote Sensing." The editors hope to see a varied set of submissions from female-led research groups or individuals representing the true breadth of topics within remote sensing, as well as reflecting the array of institutional types, regions, backgrounds, diversity, rank, and organizations. The group of editors for this issue represent four female remote sensing researchers at various stages in their careers who are all excited to lead and engage with these diverse topics. Submissions for this issue are due by September 30th, 2022 and the organizers would appreciate an initial reflection of interest also be submitted in the form of an abstract, to allow management of submissions and reviews to operate as efficiently and smoothly as possible.
Upcoming Events
Earth Science Applications Week 2022
Earth Science Applications Week is back again! Organized by NASA Earth's Applied Sciences Program, the week highlights the many experts, research, and stakeholders of the program. NASA Harvest is within the Applied Sciences agricultural program area, and multiple consortium members will present their work during the virtual event.
Registration for the 2022 NASA PACE Applications Workshop is now open. Join the conversation on
advancing the application readiness and societal value of PACE satellite data. Workshop attendees will discuss
barriers and gaps to ensure PACE data is accessible and actionable.