NASA Harvest News
Catherine Nakalembe, Africa Lead for the NASA Harvest Consortium, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, and member of the SERVIR Applied Sciences Team, has been awarded the $1,000,000 USD Al-Sumait Prize for her work leveraging machine learning and Earth observation data to improve food security and agricultural livelihoods across Africa.
In the aftermath of the Maui wildfires, NASA Harvest's Data Lead, Hannah Kerner, and Gabriel Tseng built an online app using satellite and other geospatial data to help verify locations for first responders and emergency response efforts. These efforts are expanding with additional support from NASA Acres, Arizona State University, NASA’s Equity and Environmental Justice program, Responsible Markets, and the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College.
NASA Harvest has partnered with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to improve crop yield estimates, providing tailor-made solutions to assess crop health and help organize rapid responses for disasters.
NASA Harvest is working with FEWS NET, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NOAA, the University of Maryland, and University of Santa Barbara's Climate Hazards Center to study how El Niño could impact crop yields across the globe. This year's El Niño event is forecast to continue gaining strength through the end of 2023 and projected to leave 110 million people in need of food assistance.
Each year the world loses billions of dollars from damage to crops, infrastructure, and other assets. To keep up with understanding these losses, the insurance industry is increasingly turning to Earth Observations. Data and applications produced by NASA Harvest are aiding these efforts, specifically in terms of assessing agricultural damage.
NASA Harvest Africa Lead Catherine Nakalembe and Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, co-organized a workshop in Machakos, Kenya to equip local agents with digital tools for efficient yield data collection by local extension agents.
NASA Harvest is returning to AGU this December! We've compiled a list of Harvest partners' oral and poster presentations - save this link and visit us during the conference! Additionally, our sister consortium NASA Acres, focused on U.S Domestic agriculture, will be convening sessions during the week. Learn more about those sessions here.
NASA Acres had it's official kick-off meeting this past month. NASA Acres was created to complement NASA Harvest's global efforts with a focus on U.S. domestic agriculture. Visit nasaacres.org to learn more about the new consortium's mission, projects, and partners.
Survey on Smallholder Yield Modeling
NASA Harvest has been tasked by the US Agency for International Development Feed the Future Initiative (USAID FTF) to evaluate the yield modeling landscape in smallholder settings to inform future interventions and investments.

To get a sense of the landscape beyond academic literature review, we appreciate input from organizations in the commercial and non-governmental sectors on relevant portfolios. The data collected in this survey will be presented to USAID stakeholders in a white paper that may be available for public viewing. Given potential sensitivities of disclosing intellectual property, any part of this survey is optional. Please feel free to contact us with any queries at https://nasaharvest.org/form/contact.
Upcoming Events
NASA Harvest's Crop Condition Co-Lead, Ritvik Sahajpal, is presenting at the World Bank's 'What's Cooking' webinar series. Hosted by the World Bank's Data-Driven Digital Ag Initiative, the webinar will explore the relationship between Earth Observation, crop monitoring, and yield forecasting using satellite imagery, remote sensing, crop models and artificial intelligence. You can register for public webinar here.
The American Geophysical Union's (AGU) annual fall meeting will be held in San Francisco this year. As always, the meeting serves as an opportunity for scientists, policymakers, students, and organizations to connect and discuss leading research in the field of Earth science. We look forward to meeting you there!