Since September 2013 this project has been bringing together close to 40 international partners from global, regional and national monitoring systems on a monthly bases to share and discuss information from a variety of independent complementary sources to reach a convergence of evidence-based assessment on current crop conditions in the major producer and exporter countries for the four main global food crops (wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans) and provide a report to AMIS. Information types included earth observations-based vegetation indices, agro-meteorological data, crop model outputs and field reports. In this project, University of Maryland (UMD) combined global EO-based indices with crop masks and crop calendars to identify potential areas of concern prior to the end of the growing season. National and international experts including representatives from ministries of agriculture, hydromet centers, space agencies, and universities participated in the assessments and provided input datasets and expert assessments to confirm the hotspots and provide specific details on the growing conditions.

Satellites instruments used to gather this information include MODIS, ATOVS, SMOS, SMAP, ASCAT, TIRS, TRMM.