Towards Essential Agricultural Variables: Beyond research, another fundamental aspect of GEOGLAM is our very effective relationship with the public space agencies managed through our interaction with CEOS GEOGLAM Data to Address Policy Drivers - G20, Markets, SDG’s, Paris Accord, and Sendai

The Challenge Since GEOGLAM started three major international agreements have been developed and almost all nations have signed on (Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Accord for climate and Sendai for disasters), our working environment has become more challenging SDG’s alone the world has agreed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets supported by 230 indicators, each one relying on existing and new multiple data streams for its development. Ultimately information must be integrated across science domains to achieve the goals Agriculture is a small but important part of this complex picture, and GEOGLAM can make a significant contribution In order to rise to the challenge it is clear we need a way to reduce complexity, and engage the policy communities as well as other science domains Further confounding the picture there are over seven hundred multi-lateral environment agreements, and many more addressing social and economic development, all with their own monitoring schemes

Essential Agriculture Variables: More Than a Buzzword The concept of Essential Variables (EV’s) comes from complex systems theory and simply stated they are the minimum set of fundamental variables required to characterize state and change in a system. In the context of GEOGLAM, Essential Agricultural Variables (EAV’s) are the minimum set of variables our community requires to understand state and change in agricultural systems to meet our mandate mission, as such they are already the building blocks of the information we produce. From a practical standpoint the concept of EAV’s is at a minimum a useful communication device, at best it allows us to reduce complexity when faced with multiple needs, focus our activities, and communicate our outputs in a way that supports coordination with other domains

Why Essential Agriculture Variables Now It is clear GEOGLAM is already contributing information that is helping to achieve the SDG’s We can do more but in order to do so we need to move towards more quantitative operational monitoring over multiple time scales. The incremental effort to support the new policy drivers is manageable since we are already pursuing a set of EAV’s to meet the evolving needs of our original clients around market information and early warning for food security. Because these EAV’s are fundamental indicators of state and change in our domain they can be used for monitoring multiple policy dimensions So why move on EAV’s now…Integration and coordination is difficult, it will likely be some time before initiatives like SDG’s mature to the point where their coordination function is effectively realized. If we wait for this to happen we won't be ready when they are ready to engage.

Essential Agriculture Variables – A Proposal Early on GEOGLAM has referenced the “Defourny Diagram” This approach has held fast and continues to inform our activities by linking our policy drivers to sensor agnostic, spatial-temporal requirements A proposal – The Defourny diagram represents Essential Agricultural Variables, and the area bounded in red line represent the GEOGLAM EAV’s. We propose a tiered (hierarchical)approach

Essential Agriculture Variables – A First Cut Tier 0. Core Agriculture Indicators for GEOGLAM Crop type Crop Condition Yield Forecast Tier 1. Supporting Essential Agricultural Variables (GEOGLAM) Phenology (planting date, current state, harvest date) Crop Growth Indicators (Biomass, LAI, FAPAR) Crop Calendars Etc… Tier 2. Supporting Essential Variables (External to GEOGLAM) Essential Climate variables Essential Water Variables Essential Biodiversity Variables Note: EAV list are preliminary pending further development by GEOGLAM community working group

Mapping GEOGLAM EAV’s to the Paris Accord GEOGLAM Essential Agriculture Variables In Action – Crop Type Mapping GEOGLAM EAV’s to the Paris Accord 2009 GEOGLAM tracks what crops are grown where and their condition In this example crop type mapping provides insight into how climate change is affecting the agricultural landscape 2015

Mapping GEOGLAM EAV’s to the Sendai Framework GEOGLAM Essential Agriculture Variables In Action – Crop Condition GEOGLAM Crop Monitor August 2017 for Uganda Mapping GEOGLAM EAV’s to the Sendai Framework Tracking crop condition in near real time informs proactive response to loss and damage In this example Uganda used the crop monitor to forecast the impact of an emerging drought Proactive program response based to this disaster resulted in a saving millions of dollars while improving the outcome for thousands of Ugandans

Mapping GEOGLAM EAV’s to the SDG’s GEOGLAM Essential Agriculture Variables In Action – Crop Condition Mapping GEOGLAM EAV’s to the SDG’s July 2018 AMIS Crop Monitor GEOGLAM produces its Crop Monitor as input to the Agricultural Market Information System Timely Accurate Synoptic Repeatable Easy to understand Actionable information Since 2013 this has been facilitating timely access to market information, helping to limit extreme food price volatility, directly contributing to target 2.c

GEOGLAM/CEOS Expanding the Relationship GEOGLAM Essential Agriculture Variables – Next Steps GEOGLAM/CEOS Expanding the Relationship A letter was sent from GEOGLAM to CEOS in Advance of a joint meeting at JRC next week GEOGLAM has identified our desire to expand our relationship with CEOS to leverage efforts to support analysis ready data and application ready data This effort will focus on Essential Agricultural Variables, initially addressing crop area and crop type We also discussed the need for a coordinated approach for leveraging the proliferation of ICT platforms and data services to support the agricultural monitoring system of systems Over the next year we will work with CEOS to expand our relationship and secure the space agency support we need to move forward

GEOGLAM Essential Agriculture Variables – Translated to EO Requirements for CEOS

GEOGLAM Essential Agriculture Variables – Translated to EO Requirements for CEOS

GEOGLAM Best Practice Documentation, A Proposal Enhancing GEOGLAM Information GEOGLAM Best Practice Documentation, A Proposal Higher level documents that provide a gateway to research and operational tools for those wanting to do operational agricultural monitoring - Tool agnostic documentation Focussed on addressing the Essential Agricultural Variables - Rice Monitoring Best Practices (area, condition, change, etc…) - Crop Monitoring Best Practices - Yield Forecasting Will point to “handbooks” that will provide practical hands on direction on using existing tools and available computing infrastructures and data dissemination capacity Best Practices, Proposed Structure Scoping ( what to measure, and defining site conditions ) - Field Size, orientation - Terrain - Cloud coverage In-situ data collection standards Data pre-processing chain (Analysis Ready data) Analytical Methods QA/QC and documentation (metadata) standards 13