How could satellite imaging support sustainable agriculture for smallholder farms in developing countries?

Introduction and background Satellite imagery is the field of using images made by satellites situated in space. Observing the earth is done by ‘earth observation satellite’ or ‘earth remote sensing satellite’ which are specifically designed for earth observation. Those imaging satellites are often operated by governments or businesses all over the world and a large part of satellites is of public domain (freely available). By monitoring changes of the earth surface over time, different types of analysis can be performed and characteristics of events such as droughts, vegetation and water pollution can be assessed (1). With the use of artificial intelligence researchers can assess differences between certain soil and vegetation types, monitor grape health and estimate wheat harvest size (2). The use of satellites for communication was already reported in the late 1950s in the U.S. Civil Space Program, while the first more sophisticated (three-dimensional) satellites for imaging were developed in the 1960s (3). The use of satellites to get information about vegetation patterns, moisture levels and weather has been reported since the early 1990s (4) and nowadays it is of common use in the connected world (5). However, smallholder farmers, i.e. farmers who cultivate crops at small plots of land with low rental values (6), in developmental countries are usually not connected to internet and often only have access to a mobile phone. On top of that, they often have low-resources and are very dependent on the harvest for living since the entire family income is determined by this. Since the income largely depends on ‘rainfed’ agriculture (4), i.e. 95% of existing farmland in sub-Saharan Afrika receives its water trough rainfall (7), extreme weather events among which a great variability of rainfall leads to drought and food insecurity (8). The use of satellite imaging may help coping with these circumstances. Using satellite imaging several processes can be visualized. Some applications of the use of satellite imaging are visualising soil vegetation and moisture levels based on high density images (4), weather forecasting based on long term databases (9) and early warning signals by indication of water pollution or detecting fires (10) which can save people’s lives. As indicated, satellite imaging can be used in two ways: 1) to create models that can estimate daily weather, droughts, crop loss, insect infestations or toxicity of peanuts and 2) to detect events such as fires or water pollution. In the first case, models are built based on data collected over a long period of time. Depending on the aim, satellite images and information gained out of this may be combined with ground-based information. The aim of the current essay is to investigate how satellite imaging could support sustainable development for smallholder farms in rural areas. First, a short explanation about the working of satellite images is given. Accordingly, different applications and manners in which satellite images can help farmers are explained. The paper ends with a critical discussion about the current developments within this field ending with a summarizing conclusion.