Food And Agriculture Organization (FAO) releases ‘Leveraging Space Technology for Agricultural Development and Food Security’ report

Posted 10 Feb 2025

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Report is released in collaboration with United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.

Challenges and Opportunities in various segments of Space sector for agriculture
Segments of Space Sector	Challenges	Opportunities
Upstream (focuses on space infrastructure development)	Reliance on external support for satellite development Stagnation in remote-sensing innovation.	Capacity-building initiatives like Access to Space for All and BIRDS project for developing national capabilities in mission planning and satellite development, especially for missions focusing on agricultural applications.
Midstream (addresses data processing, storage and management)	Limited access of Earth observation and GNSS data. Overlapping platforms for data access led to data inconsistencies etc.	Initiatives like ESA’s Copernicus Open Access Hub and NASA’s Earth Data reduce duplication and improve data-sharing efficiency.
Downstream (practical agricultural uses including monitoring crop and land conditions)	Agricultural Monitoring gaps like missing crop calendars, meteorological data, cropland maps etc.	Collaboration for initiatives like GEOGLAM and ESA’s World Cereal program to improve data sharing and standardization.