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An innovative tool for monitoring agricultural production and ecosystem health in Africa aims to boost and strengthen food security and decrease environmental degradation across the continent.
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Gro Intelligence, a company that uses artificial intelligence to analyze agricultural and climate data, recently launched a food security monitoring device in Africa with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Africa Monitoring System (AMS) tool was launched last month (February 23) and aims to provide real-time integrated data on agriculture, ecosystem services and human well-being, grouped into six indicator categories that can be used by policymakers and institutions.
Africa's food safety monitoring is based on Gro Intelligence's global data analytics platform.
It provides information and insight into factors related to food security through an interactive map of Africa.
Users can click on a country to view information on crop production, crop supply and demand, import prices, drought and crop health for selected major crops.
Co-organized by TMG Research gGmbH and the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), this event aims to create a discussion on the potential as well as challenges of digitalization as an accelerator for food security in the context of African-European cooperation.
The event aims to generate specific proposals on how to better integrate digital tools into policies and programmed to strengthen food security and the progressive realization of the right to food in African countries.
The event is organized under the auspices of Africa-EU negotiations towards National and Regional Indicative Programs under the EU Multiannual Financial Framework and the upcoming EU-Africa Summit in early 2022.
Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania will be the first countries to contribute data to the tool in the first of three phases targeting five sub-Saharan African regions.
The US-based NGO Conservation International is co-leading the project, and CI vice president Sandy Andelman said data will be collected by automated sensors, hands-on observations and measurements by technicians.
Data from household surveys conducted using smartphones will also be included.
"The data will be compiled into a set of aggregated indicators and displayed in an [open-access] web-based dashboard.
Raw data and analytics output will be available via the web, as well as various customized reports on specific topics," he told SciDev.
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Policy Focal Points will be established at the national, sub-national and international levels, where policy makers will be regularly consulted to ensure they understand the services and receive relevant information.
Andelman, who will serve as AMS Executive Director, said the tool's target audience will be policymakers, donors, agricultural extension systems, NGOs and farmers' organizations at the international, national and regional levels.
He said farmers would benefit indirectly through improved livelihoods and preservation of ecosystems.
Keith Shepherd, a soil scientist at the Center for Global Agriculture and Forestry in Kenya, said the system would help make more evidence-based decisions.
But he warned that "the biggest challenge will be improving multi-agency planning and coordination so that everything comes together and works smoothly.
"Without a standardized, systematic process with good quality control, we're going to have a lot of messy data from different sites that we can't integrate," he said, adding that data processing, statistical analysis, interpretation, and getting enough feedback were also potential challenges.
AMS is chaired by CI, the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and the US-based World Institute, and has received significant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Rockefeller Foundation sees its partnership with Grow Intelligence as an opportunity to reduce global food price inflation by increasing access to information and reducing fear-based responses.
Their director of communications, John Spangler, and vice president of food initiatives in Africa, Mehrdad Ehsani, told Food Tank, “Strengthening food systems is critical to making them more sustainable and resilient, and technology can be part of the solution.
I hope it shows that.
Bridging the Agricultural Information Gap.
team used a machine learning yield forecasting system to build more than 80 models of corn, rice, wheat and soybean production in 49 different countries.
The model uses real-time environmental data to predict available supplies.
and integrated production history data,” says William.
Osnato Food Tank, senior analyst at Grow Intelligence, told him.
“Once the growing season begins, the crop model combines information on weather and crop conditions across the district to produce crop forecasts.
Grow takes these forecasts, along with harvested acreage from the USDA, to produce production forecasts," added Osnato.
These forecasts are updated weekly to ensure users are working with the most relevant information.
Grow Intelligence compares crop yield estimates with demand for consumption and export crops to determine stock-to-use ratios for selected crops and countries over a 12-month period.
"Grow also used machine learning to create the Grow Drought Index, the world's first highly accurate agricultural drought index," Osnato said.
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"The values shown are weighted to focus on each country's acreage and highlight the impact of drought on crop production.
To do this, Grow uses a global dataset of county-level acreage assessments.
The Food Security Monitor provides an assessment of crop stocks, drought conditions, current crop import prices, and satellite data on crop health.
Taken together, these data provide a comprehensive picture of the country's food security for selected crops.
Feed inputs on Gro Intelligence's platform are updated at least monthly, while time-sensitive inputs are updated weekly or in real-time.
The World Food Program calls 2022 "the year of unprecedented hunger," with 828 million people facing hunger every day.
They listed conflict, climate change, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, and cost-push inflation as the main contributing factors.
They also pointed to several African countries, including Nigeria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, as hotspots for famine.
Grow Intelligence's analysis of rising food security costs shows a disproportionately negative impact on Africa due to imports of staple crops.
Osnato explained that they developed Africa's Food Security Monitor to "help address this disparity by providing public access to critical information that will help fill gaps in accurate supply and demand coverage of Africa's staple crops.
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