As the world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 (UN DESA Population Division, 2022), the degradation of land and water resources and the potential for sustainable and resilient agriculture is the centre of much attention as global demands for food, feed and fuel continue to increase at unprecedented rates. More efforts and innovations are needed to understand the agricultural land risks and opportunities and sustainably increase agricultural production, improve the global supply chain, decrease food losses and waste, and ensure that all who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition have access to nutritious food.

With the increasing in-country and local demand for specific assessment, FAO, in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Geomatics Unit of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) developed a free and open-source tool to run Agro-Ecological Zoning (AEZ) at different levels. This tool, named PyAEZ, running on the high-performing supercomputer of the Mississippi State University (MSU) is able to perform billions of calculations required to generate updated global layers on current and future states of land productivity and suitability for different crops, farming practices, water demand, identification of agricultural constraints and yield gaps among many other potential uses.

Taking the opportunity of the presence of the Mississippi State University (MSU) delegation in FAO Headquarters, a joint hybrid event has been organized on 27 June 2023 (14:30 to 15:30 CEST) at FAO Headquarters in Rome and online. The event “Enhanced global land and water resources assessment for sustainable agriculture in a high-performing on-demand computing environment” will highlight this collaboration on land evaluation, crop mapping, suitability and agro-ecological zoning, showing the latest advancements in the generation of updated global layers on current and future states of land productivity and suitability for different crops, farming practices, water demand, identification of agricultural constraints and yield gaps among many other potential uses.

Please click here to register for the event.

Agenda 

14:30: Welcoming remarks 

Maria Helena Semedo, Deputy Director General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Mark Keenum, President, Mississippi State University (MSU) 

14:40: Exploring frontiers in data sciences for innovative land and water resources assessment: big data and computing 

Matieu Henry, a.i. Head Geospatial Unit, Land and Water Division (NSL), FAO

Mimmo Parisi, Senior Advisor of European and Data Science Development (MSU) 

14:50: Collaboration on land evaluation, crop mapping, suitability and agro-ecological zoning between FAO-MSU-IIASA-AIT 

Günther Fischer, Senior Researcher, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg (IIASA)

John Cartwright, Assistant Extension Professor, (MSU)

Gianluca Franceschini, Senior Geospatial Analyst, Geospatial Unit, Land and Water Division (NSL), FAO

15:10: Roundtable discussion  

Kerrie Geil, Research Associate Professor (MSU)

Jippe Hoogeveen, Technical Officer, Land and Water Division (NSL), FAO

Federica Chiozza, GIS/ Remote Sensing Expert, Land and Water Division (NSL), FAO 

15:30: Close of meeting 

Lifeng Li, Director of Land and Water Division (FAO)

David Shaw, Executive Vice President and Provost (MSU)