Agriculture is vital to the long-term viability of development. Globally, the entire sector faces a 56% increase in food production by 2050 in order to feed nearly 10 billion people. The majority of this increase will have to come from increased land and water productivity, as well as the expansion of arable and irrigated areas. Agriculture, on the other hand, currently consumes 70% of global freshwater and emits about a quarter of all global greenhouse gases. Land clearing and habitat fragmentation are two current farming practises that have negative consequences for water quality and biodiversity. The production of commodities has been identified as one of the major causes of deforestation around the world. As a result, the most pressing question for the future of global sustainable development is how to achieve this massive increase in food and agriculture commodity supply in a sustainable manner.

Governments and development agencies must improve agricultural sector diagnostics, development indicators, programme monitoring, and service delivery to accomplish this. This necessitates access to unbiased quantified information at a large-scale. Because of advancements in satellite technology, such as data obtained from Copernicus, the European Union's Earth Observation (EO) programme, this is becoming increasingly available. Combining EO data with sophisticated analytics, information, and other support tools enables decision-makers and policymakers to make more informed decisions because they now have data at previously unavailable scales, resolution, and frequencies.

In this film, we hear about examples of how EO is used to help increase yields, support communities and underpin planning for rural  development.

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Mini Task

• Have a look at this ESA Climate from Space story on feeding a growing world

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Featured Educators:

• Erick Fernandes, (Formerly World Bank)
• Kanta Kumari Rigaud, World Bank
• Bekzod Shamsiev, World Bank
• Anna Wellenstein, World Bank