Helping farmers and ranchers to use remote sensing as a basic management tool: a development of an interactive remote sensing and image processing teaching process

The management of agro-ecosystems is an everyday challenge for farmers, ranchers, and land managers. Four main benefits arise from proper management: 1) increased yields, 2) reduced costs, 3) reduced environmental pollution, 4) maintenance of a quantitative history of field productivity. Satellite data can greatly assist management by providing spatial information on vegetation. Despite its enormous potential, remote sensing data and its derived products are still used on a regular basis by less than 5% of users in the farming and ranching community. The teaching process is essential in helping to grow a true interest in remote sensing data by end-users. Web-based interactive tutorials and training sessions, associated with efficient data acquisition and distribution system together with basic viewers, with simple manipulation capability, can bring end-users from simple spectators to involved actors.