EO4AGRI - Bringing together the Knowledge for Better Agriculture Monitoring

EO4AGRI builds a European community of stakeholders on Earth Observation (EO) in agriculture, with the perspective of contributing to the Strategic Research Agenda and policy recommendations for future utilisation of EO in agriculture

Context

EO4AGRI addresses the bottlenecks and gaps affecting the development of a strong EO sector for agriculture in Europe. By removing or reducing these gaps and by identifying research priorities, the project contributes to the utilisation of EO data and services inside and outside of Europe in support of the whole agricultural sector.

Objectives

The main objective of EO4AGRI is to catalyze the evolution of the European capacity for improving operational agriculture monitoring from local to global levels based on information derived from Copernicus satellite observation data and through exploitation of associated geospatial and socio-economic information services.

EO4AGRI assists the implementation of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with a special attention to the CAP2020 reform, to requirements of Paying Agencies, and for the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) processes.

EO4AGRI works with farmers, farmer associations and agro-food industry on specifications of data-driven farming services with focus on increasing the utilization of EC investments into Copernicus Data and Information Services (DIAS).

EO4AGRI addresses global food security challenges coordinated within the G20 Global Agricultural Monitoring initiative (GEOGLAM) capitalizing on Copernicus Open Data as input to the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEW-NET).

EO4AGRI assesses information about land-use and agricultural service needs and offers to financial investors and insurances and the potential added value of fueling those services with Copernicus information.

Methodology

The EO4AGRI project methodology is a combination of community building, service gap analysis, technology watch, strategic research agenda design and policy recommendations and dissemination (including organization of hackathons).

Partners

The EO4AGRI team consists of 11 organizations, complementary in their roles and expertise, covering a good part of the value-chain with a significant relevant networking capital as documented in numerous project affiliations and the formal support declarations collected for EO4AGRI. All partners show large records of activities either in Copernicus RTD, governmental functions or downstream service operations. The Coordinator of EO4AGRI is a major industrial player with proven capacities to lead H2020 projects.