GEOG's NASA Harvest Team Receives Award For Monitoring Impact of War on Ukraine’s Agriculture

NASA Harvest, NASA’s Food Security and Agriculture Program led by GEOG researchers, has been announced as one of the winners of the 2023 Arrell Global Food Innovation Awards for its efforts monitoring agriculture in the Black Sea Region. 

Presented annually by the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph in Canada, the Global Food Innovation Awards honor "global leaders who are ensuring future food security for the planet." In this year's edition, NASA Harvest shares the prize of CAD100,000 in the research innovation category with food scientist Sara Bonham – an alum the University of Guelph.

The award recognizes NASA Harvest’s groundbreaking use of satellite-based imaging to monitor crop production, with a particular focus on the aftermath of the 2022 conflict in Ukraine. The NASA Harvest team has supplied vital data for informed decision-making during disrupted food production and distribution, revealing unexpected crop yields that offer hope for the global food system.

“We had the tools to be able to understand what the implications [of the war] were going to be for both global food production, as Ukraine is an important food exporter, but also internally for Ukraine in terms of damage and loss,” said Inbal Becker-Reshef, program director of NASA Harvest. “[Our work helped] bridge the gap – translating innovative science so that it can be used for making decisions, and ensuring that the science is driven by a real need.”

The Arrell Global Food Innovation Awards are evaluated by a panel of experts including scientists and community activists from around the world. 

Read more in the Arrell Food Institute's press release

This article by Renata Johnson originally appeared on the University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences' website.