Thomas Delaune, Ciara Varley, Angharad Johnston.
April 9th – 12th 2024
LEG4DEV researcher Thomas Delaune from the Plant Production Systems group at Wageningen University attended the 5th Global Food Security Conference in Leuven, Belgium, from April 9-12, 2024. The conference focused on addressing the challenges of creating equitable, sustainable, and resilient food systems in response to global pressures such as climate change, pandemics, and conflict.
During the conference, Thomas presented a chapter of his PhD research titled “Identifying Smallholder Farmers’ Crop Management Practices with Remote Sensing to Support Crop Diversification with Legumes.” His presentation focused on the use of Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to identify crop types within smallholder farming systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically maize, beans, and groundnuts. The study aimed to overcome the challenges posed by limited ground data by leveraging remote sensing technology to analyse crop management practices and promote sustainable intensification through crop diversification.
A key finding from the study was the ability to distinguish multiple cropping cycles per season for maize and beans by analysing the number of vegetation peaks observed during the growing season. This method demonstrated high to moderate prediction accuracy for identifying maize and groundnut fields. However, predicting the presence of beans proved more challenging due to variability in planting and harvest timings, as well as the impact of cloud cover on satellite data. Despite these challenges, the approach offers valuable opportunities for scaling up crop identification and monitoring seasonal changes in agricultural landscapes.
By advancing the understanding and application of remote sensing technologies to support crop diversification, there is significant potential to assist the collection of local information on cropping practices in data-scarce environments. Investment in research, extension services, and infrastructure to support the scaling of such technologies will be crucial for enhancing food security and livelihoods in vulnerable communities.