Enhancing Food Security Through the Africultures Project: Design of Crop, Water and Drought Services

Smallholder farmers produce about 70% of Africa's food supply. These farmers are vulnerable to a number of risks, mainly climate related, which have a tremendous impact on food security and thus poverty. Information about crop yields, vegetation conditions and weather, among others, are essential to policy makers to enhance food security. Earth observation data, analytics and modeling from various sources, at a variety of spatial and temporal scales could be used to support policy and decision making in the field of food security. This paper describes crops, water and drought services that are being developed in the AfriCultuReS project. Preliminary results are presented, which reflect the uneven distribution of precipitation, water bodies, and vegetation conditions throughout Africa.