Strenghtening Afghanistan Institutions' capacity for the Assessment of Agriculture Production and Scenario Development

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
European Commision

Agricultural monitoring system

The project is establishing an operational national agricultural monitoring system based on sustainable methods, tools, geospatial technology and in situ data.

The key approach proposed to address the main issues of the countries on Agriculture Monitoring includes:

  • In depth analysis of the existing countries agriculture monitoring methodologies and identify the main sustainable methods and tools, including the review and validation of the existing information;
  • Develop innovative, up-to-date and/or complementary agriculture monitoring systems and improve the quality of data;
  • Improve data collection, analysis and dissemination systems based on advanced approaches and technology and integral use of remote-sensed data;
  • Improved area and yield forecasting and crop monitoring and estimation, based on geospatial information;
  • Generate cropland information including the main crop types and the main seasonal crop dynamics at national/provincial level based on integration of the remote sensing, and identify areas for improvement.

The project will focus on:

Rice and cotton productivity assessment and crop area estimation for 2017 based on recent high resolution geospatial information (Proba-V, Aqua/Terra, Landsat-8, Sentinel-1 & 2, SPOT-5, 6 & 7a, Pleiades-1A & 1B imagery).

In addition, the project will further develop the existing agriculture monitoring system at provincial level through the development of a regularly scheduled series of actionable crop production reports developed by the agriculture provincial offices that fully utilize area-yield survey data, along with remotely-sensed information. These reports/bulletins will provide satellite-based estimates of area of crops, vegetation indices depicting crop growth patterns, and information on the status of other natural resources and agricultural inputs.This will draw from the recent capacity development activities of the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), step in improving data quality and availability at the national level.