Public information about agriculture including crop planting, progress, and condition is an important factor influencing markets and export prices. Official reports by agricultural ministries, such as…

This is a $100,000.00 grant award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Maryland, College Park. The award is intended to provide in-season information about crop conditions and production prospects in major grain export countries like the United States and Russia, using earth observation data and machine learning analysis. This will help stabilize agricultural markets impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has limited government access to collect traditional crop data. The University of Maryland, College Park is the prime recipient, with the University System of Maryland as the parent organization. There is no set-aside designation for this grant award.

Public information about agriculture including crop planting, progress, and condition is an important factor influencing markets and export prices. Official reports by agricultural ministries, such as the USDA s crop progress & condition reports, are widely followed by market analysts and traders to inform decision-making around agricultural markets and futures. Thus, uncertainty in public information including official reports for major food-producing countries results in uncertainty and volatility in agricultural markets and prices. At a meeting of the agricultural market information system (amis) held april 9, 2020 in response to the covid-19 crisis, the G20 amis chair marcelo fernandes guimares asserted that provision of information that is timely and transparent will be absolutely critical to calm markets. Mitigation procedures for the covid-19 pandemic including social isolation and travel bans will limit ministries access to fields and farmers to collect information about crop acreage, progress, and conditions during the growing season. This is expected to significantly impact government's abilities to collect information about agricultural conditions domestically and internationally and will likely impact farmer survey response levels as the pandemic puts stress on individual's time and resources. In addition, policy decisions related to agricultural production made in response to covid-19 are already increasing tension and uncertainty in markets. For example, russia, the largest global wheat exporter, recently announced a 7 million ton (MT) wheat export limit in response to the pandemic, causing tension and fears of food insecurity for high-import countries. At the april 9, 2020 amis meeting, the russian agricultural ministry representative stated that they plan to place a stricter limit if unfavorable weather develops and reduces wheat production levels (difficult to anticipate without field access and reduced farmer survey responses). Market tensions and perceptions of increased uncertainty about agricultural production caused by policy decisions and reduced access to information influence market prices and decisions that can in turn disrupt market stability and food security. Earth observations (EO) data provide a valuable complementary source of information about global crop progress and conditions, enabling timely analysis at field scales throughout the growing season to supplement traditional data collection and reporting efforts. To help stabilize agricultural markets impacted by covid-19, we propose to provide in-season information about crop conditions and production prospects in major grain export countries using EO data. We will focus on regions and crops where uncertainty often has a large influence on agricultural markets and prices: corn and soybeans in the US and winter wheat in russia. Building on our existing efforts using satellite data and machine learning analysis, we will produce public, transparent maps and reports about crop progress and conditions in these regions updated regularly during the growing season.