Inside Agriculture

Supporting Food Security with Science

From American cornfields to African savannahs — Decision-makers around the world use NASA Earth data in innovative ways to better grow our food. 

For decades, the scientific community has focused on monitoring water supplies to help maximize efficient use of water, including irrigation. Now, we're measuring plant health from space, creating early warning systems and enhancing the efficiency of water use.

But we can't do it alone. We rely on a global network of partner institutions, civil society organizations and NASA's Earth-observing satellites to find the best ways to reshape our food and agriculture systems.

NASA is a science agency. We know the Earth's climate is changing. We know why it's changing. The agency works to deliver actionable science to help decision makers mitigate, adapt to and respond to that change. 

Why Agriculture?

We've increased the scope of our work with the agriculture sector because of the potential impact of climate change on our nation's ability to feed itself. 

NASA is engaging the ag sector to find out what data and tools producers need now, and in the future, as they make changes in their management practices to respond to changing weather patterns. 

Why NOw? 

Space offers NASA an unique vantage point to study the Earth's systems. As of August 2022, NASA's Earth Science Division is drawing Earth observations from 24 missions in orbit around our planet. We have three more missions we plan to have in orbit before the end of the year. 

NASA has a long relationship with agriculture. In September 2022, NASA launched Landsat 9 in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey. Celebrating 50 years in 2022, Landsat is NASA's longest-running mission.

Tools for Producers

The global observations Landsat collects are the basis for many tools that producers rely on today, including the U.S. Drought Monitor, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report.

NASA produces other applications for producers, such as NASA Harvest's precision nutrient management tools, OpenET, and Crop-CASMA. These are designed to put data-driven management tools into the hands of farmers.

Free and open to all

All NASA data is open to the public and freely available, and the agency is dedicated to developing the applications to put the data and scientific findings to work for agricultural producers.

Agriculture Fact Sheets

View PDF	View PDF
View PDF	View PDF
View PDF