NASA Harvest and ucrop.it: Crop Metrics in South America

NASA Harvest, NASA's Global Food Safety and Agriculture Consortium, will use ucrop.it, an Argentine platform for tracking crops, learning and managing environmental indicators, and verifying compliance with sustainable objectives.

Buenos Aires, June 2023. NASA Harvest, the NASA Global Consortium for Food Safety and Agriculture, is an initiative led by the University of Maryland in the United States of America. Its primary objective is to apply space science and technology to improve food safety and agriculture around the world. As a result, they recently launched a collaboration with ucrop.it, a solution that enables tracking and mapping crops, knowing and managing environmental indicators, and verifying compliance with sustainable objectives. The pilot project mapped 10,000 hectares of maize and wheat in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, involving producers who shared their CropStoryTM (Crop Story).

The NASA Harvest initiative focuses on integrating remote sensing data and tools, along with models and geographic information systems, to monitor and predict crop yields, as well as to identify environmental and weather conditions that affect food production. This is a global consortium led by researchers from the University of Maryland, which is developing various technologies based on satellite systems and artificial intelligence through a multisectoral and multidisciplinary alliance.

The ucrop.it platform enables users to record crop traceability and obtain detailed information on crop production. In addition, producers participating in the project obtain economic benefits and can access a more competitive market with better commercial conditions.

“Our purpose is to support the NASA Harvest project in its mission. We are committed to collaborating with scientists and researchers to face the challenges of agriculture and climate change and improve life and food quality for people around the world,” Marcos Botta, ucrop.it Co-Founder and CIO ( Chief Innovation Officer) said.

Through traceability, users can determine the impact of phytosanitary products on the environment; ensure the correct use of fertilizers through 4R Nutrient Stewardship (appropriate source, dose, time, and place); and know their NUE Score (efficient use of nutrients). Crop CO2 emissions can also be estimated thanks to the Carbon Footprint calculator (CFT), a feature integrated into the platform.

Estefanía Puricielli, Agricultural Economist, Co-lead of Markets and Trade, University of Maryland, NASA Harvest Department of Geographical Sciences, said: “We are excited to partner with ucrop.it to further enhance NASA Harvest's ability to promote food safety and environmental resilience worldwide. With the crop traceability tracking platform, we will be able to better understand production, which will allow us to improve our models and tools based on satellites and artificial intelligence to face the challenges of agriculture and its impacts from climate change.”

About ucrop.it

ucrop.it is an Argentine digital platform that transforms sustainability into a simple, achievable, and profitable process. Its name comes from a wordplay: "you crop" and the term "it", which refers to the technology provided by the digital solution that helps improve sustainable crop processes and certainty.  With free access for producers, ucrop.it enables easy recording and traceability of sustainable crops in a safe and confidential environment, due to the use of blockchain technology. 

Distinguished as one of the three most innovative start-ups in South America by the international financial center Abu Dhabi Global Market, ucrop.it was selected as one of the winners in the "Sustainable Agtech Challenge" of the United Nations Environment Programme for its contribution to developing more sustainable farming.

Furthermore, ucrop.it was a finalist of the "Radicle Carbon & Soil Challenge", an initiative that aims to invest in and support the most innovative agro-technological solutions; it was chosen by John Deere as one of the 7 companies participating in the "Startup Collaborator 2022" program to develop innovative solutions focused on sustainability; and it was the winner of "Acelerar España" program, a philanthropic initiative of Acelerar España foundation that helps promote the internationalization of Argentine start-ups in Europe.

Website: www.ucrop.it