Satellite analyses could play a key role in
mitigating food insecurity
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and
insights about Earth, and NASA Harvest, the federal space agency’s
Global Food Security and Agriculture Program, today announced a
partnership to further support the joint Food Security and
Agricultural Monitoring Solution. The offering aims to deliver
policy-grade agricultural monitoring and assessments of potential
threats to global food security.
This press release features multimedia. View
the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230112005711/en/
Crop type classification map, Ukraine,
2022 || This 2022 crop type classification map of Ukraine was
produced in season with 94% accuracy at 3m resolution, validated
with ~4700 ground data samples. Red boundary lines denote
Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory, and the various coloration
across the country denotes sunflower (light blue), winter wheat
(yellow), rapeseed (orange), other summer crops (dark blue), and
areas not planted (brown) as of October 2022. (Map generated
courtesy of: NASA Harvest; Data courtesy of: Planet, Kyiv
Polytechnic, NASA, and Institute for the Study of War)
The offering will combine Planet’s satellite data and other
publicly-available datasets with the analytics expertise of the
combined NASA Harvest team, facilitated by the University of
Maryland and University of Strasbourg – creating an assessment tool
that could play a key role in anticipating and averting food
shortages and famines.
This work was first piloted to monitor fields in Ukraine in 2022
to track frontline agricultural activity and assess the impact of
war on crop production. Replicating that process, and building on
existing NASA Harvest expertise in the public sector and Planet’s
commercial offerings, the work is now being scaled to conduct
regional and global assessments. The solution will be offered to
national governments, multilateral institutions, NGOs and other
interested parties around the world.
“The world’s food security is at a moment of enormous
uncertainty – triggered not only by the war in Ukraine, but by many
other serious challenges, especially those linked to climate,” said
Andrew Zolli, Planet’s Chief Impact Officer. “From drought in
Somalia to flooding in Pakistan, the combination of real-time
satellite imagery and sophisticated analytics can illuminate many
types of risks to our global food systems, helping us adapt
agricultural practices, adjust global supply chains, and mitigate
risks to poor and vulnerable communities.”
For decades, the NASA Harvest team has been developing
innovative satellite-based techniques to monitor commodity crops
such as wheat, maize, soybeans and rice. The team also collects and
analyzes environmental, economic and social science data to create
a full picture of the pending food landscape.
“Planet’s data was able to help us create a field-by-field
analysis of what was planted, what was harvested and what was
disrupted, which has been critical to understanding what is
happening in Europe’s breadbasket,” said Inbal Becker-Reshef,
Program Director for NASA Harvest, referring to the pilot project,
further adding that “this effort plays a key role in NASA Harvest’s
broader initiative to provide rapid agricultural assessments for
policy support in the face of food security and market
threats.”
“This level of understanding can greatly benefit other
organizations to monitor and predict potential issues in their own
regions, moving us from research to impact,” Becker-Reshef
continued. “It was important to both of our organizations that we
make these analyses more broadly accessible in order to improve
agriculture-related decision-making around the world, leveraging
the unmatched high spatial and temporal resolution that Planet data
offers.”
While this marks the first commercial relationship between
Planet and NASA Harvest, the pair has a well-established history of
impact- and science-related initiatives. The collaborations grew
out of NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program,
under which Planet has been providing data to NASA scientists and
federally-funded researchers since 2018. For example, Planet and
NASA Harvest supported the Government of Togo in its
COVID-19-related food security relief efforts by creating a
cropland map of the entire country, delivered within 10 days of
receiving the request, allowing the government to mobilize quickly
to ensure food security during the global pandemic.
For more information about accessing the Food Security and
Agricultural Monitoring Solution, please email
food-security@planet.com.
About Planet Labs PBC
Planet is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery
and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image
the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and
actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet
designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet
of imaging satellites, capturing over 30 TB of data per day. Planet
provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software
solutions to over 800 customers, comprising the world’s leading
agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education and finance
companies and government agencies, enabling users to simply and
effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery. Planet is a
public benefit corporation trading on the New York Stock Exchange
as PL. To learn more visit www.planet.com and follow us on
Twitter.
Forward-looking
Statements
Except for the historical information contained herein, the
matters set forth in this press release are forward-looking
statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of
the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including,
but not limited to, the ability of Planet Labs PBC (the “Company”)
to capture market opportunity and realize any of the potential
benefits from current or future product enhancements, new products,
or strategic partnerships and customer collaborations.
Forward-looking statements are based on the Company’s management’s
beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently
available to them. Because such statements are based on
expectations as to future events and results and are not statements
of fact, actual results may differ materially from those projected.
Factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from
current expectations include, but are not limited to the risk
factors and other disclosures about the Company and its business
included in the Company's periodic reports, proxy statements, and
other disclosure materials filed from time to time with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which are available online
at www.sec.gov, and on the Company's website at www.planet.com. All
forward-looking statements reflect the Company’s beliefs and
assumptions only as of the date such statements are made. The
Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking
statements to reflect future events or circumstances.
About NASA Harvest
About NASA Harvest: NASA Harvest is NASA’s Global Food Security
and Agriculture Consortium. Our mission is to enable and advance
adoption of satellite Earth observations by public and private
organizations to benefit food security, agriculture, and
environmental resiliency in the US and worldwide. Established by
NASA in 2017, we operate as a multidisciplinary and multisectoral
Consortium of leading scientists and agricultural stakeholders, led
by researchers at the University of Maryland and implemented
together with our partners across the globe.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230112005711/en/
Planet Megan Zaroda comms@planet.com
NASA Harvest Mary Mitkish info@nasaharvest.org
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