An Advanced Information System for Timely Assessments of International Crop Market Opportunities

Situation or Problem In order to provide timely and reliable assessments of the global crop market, it is necessary to move from limited, in situ crop assessments to operational crop monitoring on regional and global scales with multi-temporal remotely sensed (RS) data. Due to timeliness requirements and large volumes of imagery needed for operational agricultural monitoring, it is important that data processing and management, crop models, decision support systems, and output products are automated to the fullest extent possible. Lack of automation at the analytical step is one of the main issues precluding the introduction of RS time-series data into operational, near-real time settings. Purpose Development of an advanced, innovative system in support of timely assessments of emerging market opportunities for U.S. commodity crops is proposed. Remotely Sensed time-series data will be used to monitor crop conditions, compare given year conditions with those of the previous years, and to forecast relative crop yield on a bi-monthly basis. The overall results of the project will enhance regional and global agricultural monitoring and improve the timeliness and accuracy of current and projected crop commodity information relative to temporal marketing opportunities. The algorithms will improve FAS operational processing of time-series data and will contribute to FAS marketing and trade assessments.