Satellite imagery is now an ordinary part of precision farming. Multispectral imagery, from open missions such as Sentinel-2 [1] and from sharper commercial satellites, lets farmers and agribusinesses follow vegetation health, soil moisture and crop development across large areas [2].
Catching stress early
Maps of the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), made from satellite data, pick out stressed crops early [3], while there’s still time to adjust irrigation or target fertiliser where it’s needed. Used this way, imagery can improve yield forecasts, cut input costs and reduce farming’s environmental impact [2][4].
Milk River, Alberta. NDVI image from the USGS [5].
What it’s worth on the farm
4Earth Intelligence (4EI) has published case studies that put figures on it [4]. On wheat, analytics drawn from satellite imagery raised yields by 15%, because disease was spotted early enough to deal with [4]. Bean farmers could cut their fertiliser costs by 18% by using imagery to monitor soil nutrients and draw up fertility maps [4]. Analytics like these can be built into farm management software, as maps a farm manager can act on.
References
- European Space Agency. S2 Mission. SentiWiki, Copernicus Sentinel Online. https://sentiwiki.copernicus.eu/web/s2-mission
- Weiss, M., Jacob, F. and Duveiller, G. Remote sensing for agricultural applications: A meta-review. Remote Sensing of Environment, 236, 111402, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.111402
- U.S. Geological Survey, EROS Center. NDVI. Earthshots, USGS. https://eros.usgs.gov/earthshots/ndvi
- 4Earth Intelligence. 4EI’s Sustainability of Agriculture with Earth Observation. 4Earth Intelligence, 5 July 2024. https://www.4earthintelligence.com/insights/4eis-sustainability-of-agriculture-with-earth-observation/
- U.S. Geological Survey, EROS Center. Sentinel-2 Alberta NDVI. USGS, 2016. https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/sentinel-2-alberta-ndvi