Even as farmers continue to embrace satellite technology for insights into pests, soil health, weather, and yield forecasts in crops management and production, the need to have all this information in one location for ease of access has become equally important.
Arising to this necessity is EOSDA Crop Monitoring, an online satellite-based precision agriculture platform for field monitoring created by EOS Data Analytics, a global provider of AI-powered satellite imagery analytics.
According to Yevhenii Marchenko, Senior Account Executive at EOS Data Analytics, EOSDA Crop Monitoring is the company’s flagship product, an all-in-one platform for users — farmers and agronomists — to access all of the data in one place.
“Here, they get early detection of major crop risks, reduced input costs, complex farm monitoring, performance tracking, effortless data interpretation, custom solutions, carbon footprint minimization, and team management,” said Marchenko.
“All of that is wrapped in an intuitive interface and a team of customer success experts who provide users with constant support,” he added.
The platform integrates multiple types of data, including satellite images, crop health observations, weather conditions, crop rotation, field activities, elevation, soil moisture, and more, all in one place.
EOSDA Crop Monitoring’s multiple types of data
To aid users navigate through and access the required information, EOSDA Crop Monitoring has intergraded multiple types of data that make it stand out. These include:
This ensures users get timely detection of crop health issues such as heat, cold, water stress, diseases, pests, weeds, and more.
In case of disease or pests spread, for example, EOSDA Crop Monitoring helps determine the spot where that happens and apply any kind of protective or preventive inputs where needed instead of processing the whole field.
“This helps not only optimize the resources but also save the crops from unnecessary treatment,” said Marchenko.
The crop health information is delivered to users in a comprehensive report which is an integrated analysis on one screen with layers such as My Crops, Vegetation Indices like NDVI, Water Stress Index, Vegetation Rating, and Crop Classification.
“Provided the user selects a specific crop and year in the area of interest, these reports are delivered as required enabling them to speed up decision-making process, save time, reduce costs, and increase yields,” he said.
This is in addition to yield and biomass estimates for dozens of crops, including wheat, barley, rye, canola, and corn, offering valuable insights into crop performance.
Team Account functionality allows field owners, scouts, insurers, consultants, input suppliers, and other clients to access critical information about fields and crops from the same account. Team owners determine the level of access for each user.
It improves field management by precisely detecting problem areas, guiding scouts in the field, and saving their time and effort.
“In this,” explains Marchenko, “the field manager, farmer, or whoever is in charge pins the plot inside the platform and since it is a geolocation, it can be transferred to a scout so that the farmer or manager then knows what to look for and where.”
Field owners can also assign scouting tasks using the latest satellite images, while the platform tracks scouts via GPS and sends notifications. Scouts can operate offline, adding threat data and crop snapshots to reports for effective field monitoring.
EOSDA Crop Monitoring’s precise local field-level 14-day hourly weather forecasts combined with historical weather enables farmers to improve the planning of field activities (tillage, planting, spraying, fertilizing, harvesting, and others) and analyze weather patterns over a long timeframe.
A case in point is in Sub-Saharan and Egypt where farmers use weather apps to get alerts of meteo-risks like storms, frosts, and heatwaves.
“There is a time the grape producers in Egypt calculated the time for chill night hours and managed to gather crops early,” said the executive officer.
Growers can also track and predict extreme weather conditions such as droughts and excessive rainfall to make changes in their fields by acting accordingly.
“We have such a case with a premier wheat miller in Africa,” said Marchenko. “They had also struggled with rice cultivation since it required specific time and conditions for growth, and unexpected weather changes, as well as pest and disease threats, impacted its growth. The variety of indices we provided helped them manage the irrigation and ensure it corresponded to the weather events.”
This helps users minimise expenditures and resource consumption while maximizing crop productivity by offering a cost-effective and environmentally friendly approach to farming, ensuring optimal application rates of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides tailored to specific field conditions, thus enhancing overall farm management efficiency.
“While this helps farmers avoid wrong application and excessive use of resources, they can even go as far as determining the weather patterns based on historical weather data and defining the activities for the next season,” said Marchenko.
The company also offer a mobile app designed for scouting tasks that enables users to mark locations, check data, and add photos making it ideal for hiring scouts, as it provides access to specific areas without exposing the entire system.
Accessible to small-scale farmers
Marchenko confirms that EOSDA Crop Monitoring is accessible to smallholder farmers, particularly in low-income regions.
“We have small-scale farmers as clients as our prices differ from region to region,” he said adding that the only requirement for the platform is Internet access.
However, since internet connectivity is a problem in some regions, for example in Africa, EOS Data Analytics works with local partners who study the market and advise accordingly.
“Recently, we partnered with Quantum Solutions from Central Africa and Champion Insurance from Zimbabwe, both of which specialize in agriculture. These collaborations provide access to valuable local data we wouldn’t otherwise obtain.”
So far, there are more than 22,000 users in Africa, with almost 3,000 new users in 2024 only yet among EOSDA Crop Monitoring users, the top five countries by user numbers are Brazil, the United States, Ukraine, Argentina, and India, with North America leading as the primary region adopting the platform.
Next year, we plan to enhance our services by adopting a crop-centric approach, focusing on key crops such as cassava, palm oil, corn, sugarcane, and sunflower,” said Marchenko adding that the company is also aiming at addressing typical crop rotation pairs to provide comprehensive support for diverse agricultural practices.
