KSA and GEOGLAM team meet to advance agricultural monitoring in East Africa
Date: 2024-08-17
The
Kenya Space Agency (KSA) has met with the Group on Earth Observations Global
Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) team to discuss ways to advance agricultural
monitoring in East Africa. The meeting, held on the sidelines of the AfriGEO
Symposium at the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development
(RCMRD) in Nairobi, Kenya, aimed to follow up on the East Africa Learning
Exchange workshop hosted by GEOGLAM and other stakeholders in March 2024.
During
the meeting, KSA updated GEOGLAM on its ongoing work in support of the
agriculture sector, including a pilot project with Microsoft AI for Good and
Clark Centre for Geospatial Analytics (Clark CGA) to generate a land use land
cover map for a county in Kenya. The project will utilize AI models developed
by the COPERNICUS4GEOGLAM team to produce crop type maps for the county.
The
workflow and products generated from this project will be shared with the
Ministry of Agriculture and the County department of Agriculture for decision
support. The ultimate goal is to lay the foundation for targeted farmer
advisory services in the future, once the model products have been validated.
The
meeting was attended by Gilliams Sven, Program Director, and Esther Makabe,
Capacity Development Coordinator, for GEOGLAM, while KSA was represented by
Charles Mwangi, Acting Director, Space Applications and Utilization, and
Jacques Matara, Acting Deputy Director, Space Research and Innovation.
By: Kanto Okanta
