The future of agriculture involves farmers deciding what, how, and when to plant, based not only on what they see in their fields but also using pictures from space.
Thanks to the work of Catherine Nakalembe, that future is not far off. The Ugandan scientist leads the Africa program for NASA Harvest, the United States space agency’s food security and agriculture program. It monitors crops from space and uses a combination of satellite imagery and data from the ground to help farmers and policymakers on the continent make more informed decisions.
Advances in remote sensing and artificial intelligence allow farmers to estimate crop yields, detect potential damage during the growing season, and even make changes to save their crops from threats like pests or droughts. But access to these insights is limited for the farmers facing the most devastating impacts of climate change. Nakalembe is working to change that by developing tools that make satellite data accessible and useful for farmers and policymakers across East and southern Africa.