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RESEARCHERS PLAN TO USE SATELLITES TO IMPROVE SUSTAINABILITY, YIELD
wo of the nation’s great agricultural regions are the focus of new research that aims to head off emerging threats and improve sustainability. Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are joining colleagues to create and use artificial intelligence to help farmers in the Colorado River Basin and Salinas Valley, CA, improve their management of irrigation, fertilization, and pests. USDA›s National Institute of Food and Agriculture funded the University of California, Riversideled project with a 5-year, $10 million grant. “This project will integrate multiple satellite and meteorological data sets to help farmers in the Southwestern United States,” said Ray Anderson, a research soil scientist with the ARS Agricultural Water Efficiency and Salinity Research Unit in Riverside. Anderson leads the ARS portion of the study, working with ARS scientists Todd Skaggs and Andrew French. ARS has three primary roles in the project: To calculate project area crop water use and anomalies with crop water use across the entire region; develop tools that help growers avoid salinity damage 22
while minimizing the leaching of fertilizer; and to gather field data to validate satellite algorithms.
high resolution satellite imagery, machine learning, and cloud processing will be available to smaller producers in one easy-to Researchers will take use tool. These algorithms will help advantage of advanced satellite farmers with their field scouting so technology to provide more that they can catch problems early, frequent, detailed information before significant yield reductions to farmers than ever before. The occur.” plan is to integrate high-resolution commercial satellite data with Agriculture in the Colorado established government satellite River Basin and Salinas Valley platforms and meteorological data. employs more than 500,000 people A major advance with this work will and generates roughly $12 billion be the use of daily, high-resolution annually in revenue. Farmers in the (12-foot) satellite imagery, regions grow fruits and vegetables Anderson said. Previously, data that are shipped around the have only been available every 1-2 country all year round, particularly weeks at 60- to 100-foot resolution in winter. and were too infrequent or coarse Water availability and to provide timely and actionable use top the researchers’ priority information to farmers. list because prolonged drought “By combining the new has reduced agricultural water satellite data with artificial availability in the southwestern intelligence, we will be able to United States. discover and create tools that will “These valleys consume help farmers pinpoint areas that large amounts of irrigation water, need better irrigation, nutrient, and pest management,” Anderson said. but the amount and quality of irrigation water is decreasing,” “One of the major Anderson said. “It is important advantages to this project is that to use existing supplies more the outputs – recommendations efficiently and to protect water and highlights on a smartphone sources from nutrient and salinity app – will be accessible to all contamination that can come from farmers,” he said. “Previously, poor irrigation management.” farmers had to pay for aircraft and specialized processing to get this Source: USDA Agricultural level of imagery and detail. Soon, Research Service (Escot Elliott, ARS office of Communications). www.namfarmers.com.na
