Webinar: What Does it Take to Upscale WorldCereal?

09 December 2025

The WorldCereal team hosted a webinar on how they are upscaling for global crop monitoring.

New Global Crop Calendars & Learning From Existing Crop Type Maps

During this fourth official WorldCereal webinar we discussed how we are getting ready for generating the next batch of global cropland and crop type masks, to be released by the end of next year. We presented the main challenges related to high-resolution, global cropland mapping, as well as how WorldCereal addresses these, using a combination of agricultural expertise, Artificial Intelligence and technological innovations in cloud computing.

Two particular issues were highlighted and discussed in detail: the high diversity in cropping seasonality worldwide and spatial gaps in the availability of in-situ reference data for crop mapping. In response to these, the team presented the launch of the updated, global WorldCereal crop calendars and a new sampling framework that turns existing crop type maps into additional training data for crop detection algorithms. Watch the webinar recording to learn from our crop mapping experts!

WATCH RECORDING

WorldCereal webinar  |  9 December 2025  |  What does it take to upscale WorldCereal?

Programme

  • 14:00: Setting the scene – WorldCereal Phase II – where are we?
  • 14:05: What does it take to upscale WorldCereal for global maps?
  • 14:10: Update to WorldCereal crop calendars
  • 14:25: How to access this information in the notebooks
  • 14:30: Sampling training data from existing crop type maps
  • 14:45: Conclusions & Outlook
  • 14:50: Q&A
  • 15:00: End of the webinar

Speakers & Panel

  • Kristof Van Tricht, VITO Remote Sensing
  • Christina Butsko, VITO Remote Sensing
  • Jeroen Degerickx, VITO Remote Sensing
  • Italo Moletto Lobos, University of Valencia
  • Lucile Jam, Polytech Nice Sophia