GEOGLAM Crop Monitor for Early Warning

The May-June edition of The Earth Observer, the NASA Earth publication, features an article on GEOGLAM Crop Monitor for Early Warning, "Increasing Information Access for Food Security Monitoring: Overview of the GEOGLAM Crop Monitor for Early Warning (CM4EW)" written by Christina Justice, Inbal Becker-Reshef, Brian Barker, and Ritvik Sahajpal of the University of Maryland, College Park, as well as Tamuka Magadzire of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET).

In response to the critical need for enhanced early warning of crop production shortfalls—and with international support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), NASA Harvest, and a range of international partners—the Group on Earth Observations Global Agriculture Monitoring Initiative’s (GEOGLAM) developed the Crop Monitor for Early Warning (CM4EW). This article presents an overview of the CM4EW, and a case study of where the CM4EW products have been used as reliable sources of information on current crop conditions in Southern Africa. These tools have been used to better inform food security decisions around the world, and to increase access to information on the progress of droughts and other disasters (e.g., flooding, extreme weather events, regional conflict, pestilence, and disease outbreaks) and their impacts on crops. 

Read more at The Earth Observer.