Assessing threats to food security and making agricultural monitoring more accessible are the goals of a new collaboration between NASA Harvest and Planet Labs PBC.

The Food Security and Agricultural Monitoring Solution aims to make a breakthrough food security solution widely available. It combines satellite data from Planet Labs with the NASA Harvest team’s expertise. Planet Labs PBC is a provider of high frequency global satellite data and analytics.

This assessment tool will help anticipate food security and market threats globally. Providing this key information can support policy development and help. It also helps governments and other agencies mobilize faster and with more accuracy to avert food shortages or disruptions globally.

NASA Harvest has worked with Planet Labs on related efforts.

In 2022 the NASA Harvest team used Planet satellite basemaps together with environmental, economic, and social science impact data to forecast how wheat harvests in Ukraine were affected by the country’s conflict with Russia, critical information for food security specialists. During the COVID-19 pandemic, NASA Harvest supported the Government of Togo's food security relief efforts with cropland maps that used data from Planet and other sources.

NASA Harvest is NASA’s international food and agriculture program led by the University of Maryland. More about the NASA Harvest and Planet partnership is on NASA Harvest’s website, Using Space to Help Feed the Hungry.

For more on NASA Harvest’s analyses of Ukraine farming outputs, read the NASA Applied Sciences story, Larger Wheat Harvest in Ukraine Than Expected.

Ukraine in October 2022 showing crops such as sunflower (light blue), winter wheat (yellow), rapeseed (orange) and other summer corps (dark blue). Credits: NASA Harvest