For decades, satellites have helped scientists observe Earth’s changing landscapes. Now, they could also help answer one of agriculture’s most pressing questions: How can the world produce more food while reducing its environmental impact?
New research by Meha Jain, University of Michigan associate professor of environment and sustainability, examines the impacts of environmental change on agricultural production and strategies that farmers may adopt to reduce negative effects.
She says that high-resolution satellite imagery, combined with new analytical tools, can help governments, policymakers and development organizations better understand where agricultural interventions work, allowing them to target resources more effectively and build resilient food systems.
“New advances in satellite technology can help support decision-making in traditionally data-scarce systems,” she said. “Many potential solutions already exist; we need to identify ways to increase the adoption of these strategies at scale.”
Jain’s study, published in Science, combines remote sensing and geospatial analyses with household-level and census datasets to examine farmer decision-making and behavior. Her work focuses on the impacts of weather variability and groundwater depletion on agricultural production in India and if farmers can adapt their cropping practices to mitigate these impacts.
Source : umich.edu