Enhancing Food Security in AFRIcan AgriCULTUral Systems with the Support of REmote Sensing (AfriCultuReS) project (2017 – 2020):
LocateIT is part of a consortium comprising 17 partners, nine from Europe and eight from Africa that are implementing the AfriCultuReS project that is funded by the European Union (EU) through the Horizon 2020 (H2020) – the biggest EU research and innovations programme. The project aims to design, implement and demonstrate an integrated agricultural monitoring and early warning system that will support decision making in the field of food security.
AfriCultuReS will deliver a broad range of climatic, production, biophysical and economic information for various regions in Africa. The project will apply geospatial science to sustainable agricultural development, natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and poverty alleviation in Africa. LocateIT’s geographical coverage in the project is Kenya and by extent East Africa and has selected 12 counties as pilot sites, among them Vihiga County
Key players
AfriCultuReS, supported by the GEO Secretariat, involves all key players of AfriGEOSS, GEOGLAM, SIGMA, ARTEMIS, African Drought Observatory and other initiatives as well as partners representing the diversity of African agricultural systems, in an effort to push forward the services provided by current systems, with innovative fusion of data from multiple sources (EO, in-situ, citizen-based crowdsourcing, climate services and weather, crop models) in a vertical manner. Crop yield and biomass prediction models is enhanced through the fusion of EO data and climate models, emphasizing the use of the complementary sensors of the EU Sentinels constellation.
African networks
The African partners and collaborating networks are essential for local training and promoting further use of the project tools. Social innovation is used to increase the number of involved stakeholders and to boost the flow of information in a user-friendly manner. The final target is to produce a web tool that supports early decision-making for the stakeholders of African food production.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 774652
ProjectLink: http://www.africultures.eu/