On June 5, 2020 we kicked off ‘WordCereal’, a new ambitious ESA project which aims to develop – building on existing community initiatives, open and free EO sources, new algorithms, ICT infrastructure and reference datasets – an open-source, efficient, agile and robust EO based system to timely monitor the global cropland extent at field scale.
This is a huge and unprecedented undertaking which can only be successful through a collaborative approach that engages with the various players within the international monitoring community and leverages the extensive existing efforts, experience and expertise within this community.
To achieve our goals we organized an online agricultural survey to collect as many reference data as possible, and at the same time refine our user requirements by performing interview with more than 20 targeted users (e.g. GEOGLAM, AMIS, FAO GIEWS, FAO land and water division, NASA Harvest, ICPAC, Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, CONAB, CGIAR, Radiant Earth) to collect their valuable feedback and ensure that products and tools are driven by the end user needs.
Sven Gilliams, project coordinator of WorldCereal, explains more about the key user interviews and reference data gathering, and shares some first results in his latest blog article 'WorldCereal, mapping global agriculture at fields scale.