Global Agricultural Monitoring

  • Released Saturday, June 27, 2009
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen collaboration. In support of this collaboration, NASA and the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) jointly funded a new project to assimilate NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data and products into an existing decision support system (DSS) operated by the International Production Assessment Division (IPAD) of FAS. To meet its objectives, FAS/IPAD uses satellite data and data products to monitor agriculture worldwide and to locate and keep track of natural disasters such as short and long term droughts, floods and persistent snow cover which impair agricultural productivity. FAS is the largest user of satellite imagery in the non-military sector of the U.S. government. For the last 20 years FAS has used a combination of Landsat and NOAA-AVHRR satellite data to monitor crop condition and report on episodic events.
This animation shows where the world's food is grown versus where the world's food is consumed. The movie starts with global croplands and then fades to the countries that produce over 80% of the world's wheat, grain, and cereal. It then overlays the world's population density and then fades to show the countries that are projected to double and triple their population by 2050.
This is the labeled version of this data visualization.
Cropland areas as seen by MODIS are colored yellow in this image. This shows the areas around the world where food is grown.
Cropland areas as seen by MODIS are colored yellow in this image. This shows the areas around the world where food is grown.
Twenty six countries worldwide produce 82% of the world's wheat, grain, and cereals. These countries are shown in yellow.
Twenty six countries worldwide produce 82% of the world's wheat, grain, and cereals. These countries are shown in yellow.
This image shows the world's largest producers of wheat, grain, and cereal in yellow versus the world's 2002 population density in red.
This image shows the world's largest producers of wheat, grain, and cereal in yellow versus the world's 2002 population density in red.
This image shows the biggest producers of wheat, grain versus the countries that are projected to double or triple their population by 2050. The red cross hatched areas are where significantly more food will be needed. Africa is in trouble.
This image shows the biggest producers of wheat, grain versus the countries that are projected to double or triple their population by 2050. The red cross hatched areas are where significantly more food will be needed. Africa is in trouble.
The United Nations is projecting the cross-hatched areas in light red to double their population.Yellow represents the countries that currently produce over 80% of the world's wheat, grain, and cereals.
The United Nations is projecting the cross-hatched areas in light red to double their population.

Yellow represents the countries that currently produce over 80% of the world's wheat, grain, and cereals.

The United Nations is projecting the cross hatched areas to triple their population by 2050. Yellow shows the countries that currently produce over 80% of the world's wheat, grain, and cereals.
The United Nations is projecting the cross hatched areas to triple their population by 2050.

Yellow shows the countries that currently produce over 80% of the world's wheat, grain, and cereals.

The United Nations is projecting the cross hatched areas to triple their population by 2050.
The United Nations is projecting the cross hatched areas to triple their population by 2050.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Saturday, June 27, 2009.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.

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Datasets used

  • Gridded Population of the World (Version 3 Beta)

    ID: 272
    Type: Data Compilation Collected by: SEDAC Dates used: 2002
    See all pages that use this dataset

  • VI (Composite Vegetation Index) [Terra and Aqua: MODIS]

    ID: 632
    Type: Data Compilation Sensor: MODIS Collected by: NASA Dates used: 2003/07/26 - 2003/08/20
    See all pages that use this dataset

  • NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)) [Terra and Aqua: MODIS]

    ID: 633
    Sensor: MODIS Collected by: NASA Dates used: 2003/07/26 - 2003/08/20
    See all pages that use this dataset

Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.