Creating Open Agricultural Maps and Ground Truth Data to Better Deliver Farm Extension Services

Smallholders in Africa often lack access to the inputs and information that can help boost their productivity and resilience to major sources of volatility including climate shocks. One key reason for this inadequacy of agricultural extension services is the absence of data that accurately map where croplands are and what they grow. Making such maps is challenging because it requires the ability to use satellite imagery to accurately map the boundaries of smallholders’ fields over large areas, and the ability to collect, on an annual basis, precisely geo-referenced ground-truth observations that detail which crops are growing within a large sample of those mapped field boundaries. This project will generate ground-truth data and accurate maps of where croplands are and what crops are grown.