Guidelines on the Use of Remote Sensing Products to Improve Agricultural Crop Production Forecast Statistics in Sub-Saharan African Countries
The present report provides baselines on staple crop zones and their attributes, such as crop calendars and climatic trends, which could form the basis for improved crop assessments and production estimation. There is reasonable statistical correlation between field-based crop production (acreage, yield) assessments with readily available remotely sensed products and crop model outputs, thereby offering new opportunities for more objective approaches for timely and reliable crop production forecasting in Kenya, Senegal and Zimbabwe. Thus, this report provides guidelines and a framework for developing multistage crop forecasting systems built on existing national institutions, but also leveraging on new technical advancements in a sustainable manner. In explaining the first and the critical step of the process, namely establishing the baselines, examples from Kenya, Senegal and Zimbabwe are considered and explained in detail in the report.
