1. Space for Agriculture: Challenges and opportunities to supporting a competitive agricultural sector in Canada through Earth Observation
Good morning
Andrew M. Davidson, Ph.D
Manager, Earth Observation Operations,
Agro-Climate, Geomatics & Earth Observation Division,
Science & Technology Branch.
@AndrewMDavidson

2. Challenges for the Canadian Ag Sector
Food Security:
How to feed a growing population in a sustainable way?
Market price volatility: food prices are increasing worldwide due to changes in energy and water availability, climate risk.
Environmentally Sustainable Food Production:
Energy, water, fertilizer/pesticide usage by agriculture.
Greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural activities.
Land conversion, loss of ecosystem goods and services.
Consumer demands for sustainably grown foods, certification.
Economic Sustainability of Agriculture:
Need to expand markets, develop new products.
Costs of water, energy, fertilizers/pesticides against food prices.
Impact of climate variability, disease.

3. Emerging Science & Policy Trends: Why AAFC Monitors
Sound policies and programs require appropriate, timely and cost effective information.
Effectiveness of policies and programs to achieve management goals depends on the quality of information upon which they are based.
There is a growing need to measure and report on performance as expectations about accountability and value for money grow.
Participation in international fora (e.g. GEO, OECD, FAO) demands the capacity to monitor and report on agri-environmental conditions.
As government resources decline and as new funding pressures arise, there is greater pressure to do more with less.
There is a growing realization of the value of moving from reactive strategies to more proactive approaches.
We must measure in order to manage effectively !!

4. Monitoring, Forecasting and Risk Assessment: From Reactive to Proactive
Includes geospatial data.

5. Looking Forward from Above
In light of recent policy trends, it is critical that AAFC geospatial science development be quickly moved outside of the research domain in to operational application for targeting and implementing policy.
As AAFC moves forward with this new capacity it needs to better align monitoring activities and strengthen interaction with policy / programs.
New geospatial technology offer opportunities to improve the timeliness, scope, accuracy and integration of science, bringing more relevance to AAFC science and more science to AAFC’s policies and programs.
Earth observation-based decision support that integrates airborne, satellite, in situ, and ground data collection networks are some of the geospatial technological keys to this future.
Earth Observation has the potential to provide timely “wall-to-wall” information to support AAFC programs and activities, either alone or integrated with other geospatial data.

6. Earth Observation at AAFC…
Earth Observation (EO) helps AAFC to understand:
The extent and diversity of Canada’s agricultural landscape.
The current state and changes in this landscape and in agricultural production.
This understanding will allow AAFC to provide leadership in the growth and development of a competitive, innovative and sustainable Canadian agriculture and agri- food sector.

7. … is attractive because…
… it can provide:
Spatially complete information over large inaccessible regions;
Well calibrated data over time;
Information at wavelengths sensitive to vegetation and soil properties.
… it can support AAFC activities and programs:
EO data at various spatial and temporal scales supports agricultural land use management, biomass estimation, modeling and monitoring.
… it will continue to provide data well into the future:
In the next 5 years, new sensors planned for launch by Canada, U.S., European Space Agency, India, Japan, Argentina.
AAFC has the experience and expertise to take advantage of new opportunities in EO to develop state-of-the-art methods to extract meaningful information from new platforms and sensors.

8. The Application of EO at AAFC
Vision: To understand the state of Canadian agricultural production from pre-planting conditions through to post harvest conditions.
Decades of EO research have led to the development of innovative agricultural monitoring capabilities that are, or close to being, operational:
Crop type, area and condition.
Snow cover, Soil moisture, Excessive wetness, Drought.
Climate and weather related impacts on production.
Crop yield forecasting.
Harvest progress monitoring.
Soil management (tillage, crop residue).
Biomass production.
Crop damage, disease and pests.
Soil health.  
Operational 
In Development  
Planned 

9. EO-Based Land Use and Cover (LULC) Products
2016 Annual S-B Crop Inventory
Circa 2000 Land Cover of Canada
Land cover classification representing agricultural regions of Canada, circa 2000.
Based on Landsat-5 and -7 data (30m).
Annual Space-Based Crop Inventory
Land use (crops) and cover (non-crop) within Canada’s agricultural extent at the field level.
EO-based: Optical (AWiFS; SPOT; DMC; Landsat-5, -7 and -8; GF-1) and SAR (RADARSAT-2) imagery.
Decadal Land Use
Land use to meet AAFC commitments in inter- national reporting (e.g. UNFCCC, OECD, FAO).
Convergence of evidence: Land cover and crop maps and various NRCan CanVec layers (Buildings, Hydrography, etc… ).
Winnipeg Manitoba Area

10. Annual Space-Based Crop Inventory (2009 - 2016)

11. AAFC Decadal Land Use (1990, 2000, 2010)

12. Products Derived from Land Use and Cover
Ag Land Use Change Indicators
Indicate where, how much and how agricultural land use has changed.
Allows annual land use changes to be tracked between important cover types.
Crop Zones and Densities
Annual Crop Inventory archive used to map growing zones of Canada’s major crops (geographical distribution plus frequency and density of occurrence).
Interpolated Crop Yield
Annual Crop Inventory archive and inter- polated crop insurance information used to map single- and multi-year yields and their variability for major crops.

13. Weekly Soil Moisture & Crop Condition Products
NRT Surface Soil Moisture Mapping
Near-real-time weekly, bi-weekly and monthly surface soil moisture maps derived from daily passive microwave data from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite.
Collaborating with USA (NASA and USDA) on the calibration of the Soil Moisture Active passive (SMAP) satellite.
NRT Crop Condition Assessment
Near-real-time weekly maps of crop condition and differences from normal conditions using daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro- radiometer (MODIS) reflectance observations.
Contributes to the Canadian GEOGLAM crop condition assessments for the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS).

14. EO-Integrated Models and Reports
Canadian Crop Yield Forecaster (CCYF)
Monthly crop yield forecasts during the growing season using statistical forecast models, agri- climate information and remotely sensed data.
Integrates Annual Crop Inventory and Weekly Crop Condition (NDVI) information.
Currently for: Spring Wheat; Durham Wheat; Canola; Barley; Corn; and, Soybean.
Climate-Related Production Risks Committee
Integrates multiple AAFC geospatial datasets and regional expertise to report bi-weekly on 17 climate-related risks to production.
Plays significant role in evaluating weather and climate-related risks to Canadian agriculture and supports policy and program decisions.
CRPRC reports are the basis of Canada`s international reporting to FAO AMIS.

15. Who Are AAFC’s Clients? Primary: Others:
Departmental (STB, MISB, SPB);
Other Government of Canada Departments (AAFC, EC, STC, …);
Provinces (BC, AB, SK MB, ON, NS, …);
Commodity Groups (Canola, …).
Others:
Agri-Business;
Non-Govern’t Organizations (NGOs);
Universities and research laboratories;
International (GEOGLAM / JECAM).

16. Importance of Value-Added Products
Better reporting on ag state and change enhances…
Policy development;
Program delivery;
Program reporting;
Targeting.
…and results in:
Better decision making;
More timely decisions;
Enhanced accountability;
Increased opportunity;
New avenues for research.
“Knowing where things are and why is essential to rational decision making.”
-- Jack Dangermond, President, ESRI

17. Opportunities
Advances in satellite and sensor engineering will lead to:
The launch of new EO instruments with enhanced capabilities;
Provide data continuity & long term data records;
Drive a new generation of scalable and spatially explicit agro- environmental (AE) indicators; and
Improve the output of process-based models.
Open data archives in Canada and elsewhere will:
Improve access to data, products and services;
Increase international collaboration; and
Lead to globally consistent methods for data product validation.
Data processing centralization will allow increased data volumes to be quickly and efficiently acquired, processed and stored.

18. Ongoing Research Space-Based Crop Inventory Land Use Change Indicators
Development of methods and workflows for more accurate landscape classification (DUAP-CSA).
Land Use Change Indicators
Development of new generation of spatial explicit and scalable EO- based AE-indicators (SSTA, A-Base).
An Agricultural Monitoring Framework for Canada
Development of a monitoring frame- work appropriate to meet the needs of Canadian ag sector (GRIP-CSA).
Development of methods to estimate crop acreages within-season .
Crop Phenology Metrics
Development and application of algorithms to extract within-season phenological metrics from EO time series in near-real-time.
Integration of EO in the CCYF
Benefits of integrating EO data into the Canadian Crop Yield Forecaster for finer-scale (field-level) prediction of crop yield.
Harvest Progress Monitoring
Development of methodologies to map crop-specific progress of harvest on a national scale in near-real-time.

19. Thanks for listening! Andrew M. Davidson, Ph.D
Manager, Earth Observation Operations,
Agro-Climate, Geomatics & Earth Observation Division,
Science & Technology Branch.
@AndrewMDavidson