The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is currently operates the only agricultural monitoring system that is global, providing critical information on global crop production in the context of global markets and food security. Since the 1970’s, NASA and the USDA have been working together to develop the capability to monitor global agriculture with satellite remote sensing. Recently, the NASA Science Applications Program, through support of the Global Agricultural Monitoring (GLAM) project, has successfully transitioned MODIS data into the operational Decision Support Systems (DSS) of the FAS, replacing the AVHRR as the primary source of global satellite observations. The FAS system requires a well characterized, long time-series of measurements, sufficient to assess the development of crops and compare growing conditions to previous years. The NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) was planned to provide data continuity with MODIS, providing risk reduction and a bridge to the NPOESS era satellites. This NASA Applications proposal’s primary objective is to continue NASA’s role of transitioning NASA satellite data from research to operations by preparing NPP VIIRS data for inclusion in the operational FAS DSS. Our approach will be to replicate and improve the current MODIS FAS capabilities with the VIIRS. The project will be carried out under the following tasks: (1) evaluation of the VIIRS instrument performance and EDR’s for FAS agricultural monitoring and reproduction and enhancement of the products currently provided by MODIS to the FAS DSS for VIIRS; (2) inter-comparison of the VIIRS and MODIS data products in the post-launch period, with the aim of assessing VIIRS continuity with the MODIS data record used for agricultural monitoring, and evaluation of VIIRS data products and provisional data flows from the GSFC Land PEATE by crop analysts; (3) participation in the various functions of the NASA VIIRS Science Team and help the FAS and the GEO Agricultural Monitoring Community present their observation requirements with respect to the VIIRS instruments and data products and the future Joint Polar Satellite Systems. The goal is to evaluate and prepare NASA VIIRS data for integration into the FAS Crop condition And Data Retrieval and Evaluation (CADRE) and Crop Explorer systems (the primary components of the FAS Global Crop Production Intelligence System) and establish compatibility with the MODIS data archive. Given that the VIIRS instrument will be launched in September 2011, this proposal will focus on evaluation of the VIIRS data and preparation for its use by FAS. Emphasis will be given to establishing data flows to enable timely delivery of VIIRS data sets in a format permitting easy ingest into CADRE and use by the FAS analysts. Responsibility for the integration and testing of these data into the operational FAS DSS is outside the scope of this research proposal. This proposal builds on: i) the experience of the MODIS GLAM project, a collaborative research activity between the University of Maryland, NASA/GSFC, SDSU and the USDA FAS, ii) the experience gained by the P.I. on the current VIIRS Science Team and with EDR evaluation, iii) the role of the proposal team in advancing the use of NASA data by the GEO Global Agricultural Monitoring Task Ag 0703.