Welcome to the official newsletter for NASA Acres, NASA's new U.S. focused consortium on agriculture and food security.

Sincerely,

NASA Acres is NASA's U.S.-focused agriculture and food security Consortium of more than 30 top-of-the field scientists and practitioners in agricultural remote sensing, artificial intelligence, soil science, specialty crop, row crop, rangeland agronomy, sociology, economics, and data policy. Acres is led by the University of Maryland with Research, Development, and Extension Partners at nine other universities and two supporting private organizations. We are honored to build on the success of NASA Harvest, NASA's globally focused consortium.

NASA Acres brings the value of Earth observation technology down to Earth. We bridge the gap from space-to-farm and education-to-impact together with U.S. farmers, ranchers, and other agrifood system decision makers who are charged with addressing the most pressing challenges to sustainable, productive, and resilient agriculture, both today and into the next generation.

Last month, NASA's Earth Observatory spoke with scientists from the NASA Acres and NASA Harvest Consortia on how the intense, prolonged drought in the central United States (particularly within the major wheat producing state of Kansas) will impact the 2023 wheat harvest.

The map above shows conditions in the continental U.S. as of June 20, 2023, as reported by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a partnership of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The map depicts drought intensity in progressive shades of orange to red. It is based on an analysis of climate, soil, and water conditions measurements from more than 350 federal, state, and local observers around the country. NASA contributes several measurements and models that aid the drought monitoring effort.

According to the map, 79 percent of the land area in Kansas was in some level of drought. Six percent of the winter wheat crop—mostly in the center of the state—was in exceptional drought; 46 percent was in extreme drought, and 22 percent was in severe drought, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor. 

At a glance, you may be asking yourself a question that we heard quite a few times during our visit: “What is a group of NASA scientists doing on a corn field in Iowa?” As the nation’s leading producer of corn, eggs, and hogs, the second leading producer of soybeans, and the producer of many other vital crops, the agriculture industry in Iowa plays a critical role in food and economic security in the United States (U.S.) and the globe, at large. Corn, itself, makes up the dominant share of agriculture products produced in the Country making it no surprise that the U.S., one of the top agriculture producing and exporting nations in the world, is the leading global producer of corn and corn-based products. In 2022, Iowa’s nearly 13 million acres of corn planted produced more than 2.5 billion bushels of corn – a production equating to over 16.8 billion dollars. Iowa knows how to grow corn and, as they say, it’s no doubt that corn grows Iowa too. Behind the success of Iowa’s thriving agriculture industry, are farmers and industry experts, many of which are leveraging cutting-edge technology in precision agriculture and supply chain applications – this week we got to speak to a few of them to learn what kind of Earth data and tools NASA could provide to Iowa farmers that could help inform short and long-term agronomic management practices for this vital industry.

The goal of the session is to demonstrate how recent advances in Earth observation (EO) data resolution, quality, accessibility, and processing have unlocked new potential to meet challenges facing U.S. agriculture through the provision of low-latency, low-cost, actionable agriculture information to decision makers from across the agriculture value chain and into policy chambers. Please consider participating in the session by submitting a contributing abstract by the deadline on August 2.

If you are already submitting another abstract as a first author please note the following AGU policy: First authors can submit up to two contributed abstracts (i.e., non-invited abstracts), as long as the second abstract is submitted to a session led by a different section from the first abstract. Invited authors can submit up to three abstracts, including one contributed, as long as one is submitted to a session led by a different section from the first abstract.