every day NASA collects information
vital to food production all over the
world these kinds of data can help make
the difference for some people between
being able to buy food and going hungry
these data help relief agencies know
where food will be needed most and they
can make the difference between profits
and losses for farmers and even entire
food production systems this information
is a valuable asset NASA's mission to
give it away for free by applying our
science and applying it in a way that's
transparent and objective and open to
everybody it's a great role for NASA as
we want everyone to understand and have
a level playing field what the issues
aren't food supply and demand and
everyone makes better decisions and life
is better for us we can't monitor from
the ground everything that is going on
which includes vegetation rainfall sea
surface temperatures basically the
entire biosphere or the entire planet we
process the data we produce specific
products that they want customize them
to their needs and we provide them with
a capability to make sure that the data
can be used so that when they make the
assessments they are using it knowing
that the data has actually been
scientifically proven to be valuable
after NASA collects this massive amount
of data it takes a strong partnership of
other agencies and institutions to share
the data and then help turn the
information into action NASA also works
with the US Department of Agriculture
and several major universities to
monitor the world's food production in a
program called the global agriculture
monitoring partnership it's a system
where we use satellite data from the
NASA Modi's satellite instrument onboard
the Earth observing satellite it's a
moderate resolution sensing system the
bands are selected for for agricultural
monitoring what you're trying to
understand is what are going to be the
supply and demand
for food and to locate where those
places are so both for food security
issues for food aid and also for market
intelligence we release our information
to the public our crop estimates to the
public so that everybody has that data
and so that farmers can get a fair price
well ultimately you'd like to see crop
production increase for every country so
that you know all countries are food
secure but for now famine remains a very
real possibility for many parts of the
world though the famine early warning
systems network uses a lot of satellite
remote sensing in its analysis but it
really focuses on the conditions on the
ground the social the political and the
economic conditions and uses remote
sensing as a critical piece of
information about production of
agricultural products it's really
fascinating because it's very much one
of those organization that brings the
social side and the biophysical side
together in the same analysis we are
much more able to be very specific about
the conditions of food insecurity in
some very difficult places to to monitor
it's very particularly evident in
countries where for a variety of reasons
access to the ground is limited they may
have conflict they may have bandits
there may be terrorism in those places
satellite imagery still remains one of
our primary tools and one of our most
important tools for measuring food
availability and even food access most
people don't know that NASA satellites
provide so much data about how we grow
food on this planet and that with these
data teams of researchers work to
increase crop yields ease famine and
keep the global agricultural system
functioning but NASA and its many
partners will keep providing this
agricultural data so that governments
agencies farmers and food producers can
have the information to make the best
choices to feed the world's people
you