AIR Holds Online Workshop on Application of CropWatch for Agricultural Monitoring in Nigeria

ANSO CropWatch-ICP

02 06, 2021

The Online Workshop on the Application of CropWatch for Agricultural Monitoring in Nigeria was held on 25 May, 2021. It was jointly hosted by the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) of Nigeria. Prof. Wu Bingfang, Head of the AIR CropWatch team and his four colleagues, and Mr. Halilu Ahmed Shaba, Director General of NASRDA, Mr. Matthew Adepoju, Director of the NASRDA Department of Strategic Space Applications, as well as their six colleagues joined the workshop.

Mr. Halilu Ahmed Shaba said in his opening remarks that the “ANSO CropWatch Innovation Cooperation Programme for Agricultural Monitoring” (“CropWatch-ICP”) is exactly what they need and he looked forward to having an effective cooperation in the Programme. Mr. Matthew Adepoju pointed out that Africa, and Nigeria in particular, faces big challenges in achieving food security, and that space technology is urgently needed for solving agricultural problems related to domestic insecurity. In this regard, he hoped that they can learn from the Chinese team, follow up with the latest technological achievements and move toward the realization of food security. The Nigerian team introduced the basic information of NASRDA, its demands for agricultural monitoring with remote sensing and its agricultural projects. The CropWatch team presented the “CropWatch-ICP” programme, the technical aspects of CropWatch and its applications.

During the workshop, the two sides discussed the modalities of cooperation and determined specific elements for cooperation, including system requirement analysis, monthly technical exchanges and formulation of work plans. The cooperation will expand the application of the CropWatch system in West Africa, benefit other Belt and Road countries and promote the realization of sustainable development goals.

The two sides agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation and include, apart from agriculture, water, ecology and other fields of earth observation in the scope of cooperation. This will allow China to play a bigger role in the field of earth observation in the Belt and Road countries.

The workshop was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program Development of advanced crop monitoring methods under GEOGLAM Flagship and the CAS Big Earth Data Science Engineering Program.