The U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA FAS), Office of Global Analysis, hosted a Summit on Global Food Security Challenges: Monitoring Earth Resources in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 2009.

Leaders from USDA FAS-OGA, NASA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, USAID, and State Department provided insights into the many challenges of monitoring and maintaining a stable worldwide food supply and the progress that has been made to date. The goal of the Summit on Global Food Security Challenges: Monitoring Earth Resources was to provide education on the critical link that exists between a stable food supply and national security in many countries. Global food supplies are often stressed by population growth, political issues, resource depletion and climate change. The USDA FAS Office of Global Analysis assumed leadership in convening the Summit as their daily mission is to monitor crop conditions, and analyze and assess food supplies and distribution worldwide for humanitarian, economic and security purposes.

“By combining the satellite imaging capabilities and expertise of three government agencies, USDA FAS Office of Global Analysis was able to develop a sustainable technique for identifying drought conditions and agricultural failure long before harvest time,” stated Robert Tetrault, Satellite Imagery Archive Manager, USDA FAS International Production Assessment Division. “The U.S. and Iraqi governments used this information as input in the drought mitigation plans. They were able to assure adequate food and feed supplies and help farmers affected by the drought.” A featured presentation at the conference demonstrated a USDA FAS partnership with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in a 2008 pilot project in Iraq to successfully identify warning signs in advance of a severe drought. In the project, USDA used the technique for integrating meteorological data with high-, medium-, and low-resolution satellite imagery supplied by NGA, NASA and other sources to assess crop conditions in parts of Iraq where observations by agricultural experts on the ground were impossible to obtain. Most importantly, the new technique developed by USDA-FAS in partnership with NASA and NGA can be replicated to monitor food supplies elsewhere in the Middle East and in Africa.

USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) has the primary responsibility for USDA’s international activities—market development, trade agreements and negotiations, and the collection and analysis of statistics and market information.  As such a primary mission of FAS is to target, collect, analyze, and disseminate timely, objective, useful, and cost-effective global crop condition and agricultural production information. The purpose is to provide unbiased commodity estimates and forecasts to create a marketing edge for U.S. producers in world markets. Additionally, Global Marketing Insights, Inc. executives have worked with USDA FAS since 1988 and have assisted in the development and implementation of the last four annual summits as well as implementation of the FAS IPAD strategic plan. As authors of the NOAA and USGS International Remote Sensing Studies, Global Marketing Insights, Inc. is the largest global provider of remote sensing information.