Early Adopters

As part of the ESA initiative EO Africa, the overall objective of the PRISMA 4 Africa project is to develop a partnership between African and European entities to promote use of Earth Observation (EO) data and technologies to respond to African user needs.

Three African Early Adopters (AEA) expressed their willingness to provide their contribution to the project, believing that the products and toolboxes that will be implemented and shared will be of great support to their mandate.

Gabon

The Gabonese Agency for Space Studies and Observations (AGEOS, http://ageos.ga/ ) was created in 2010 to provide Gabon with a tool capable of anticipating, measuring and monitoring the impact of its economic development on its forest heritage.

Since then, AGEOS has quickly extend its skills to several land and maritime EO applications, at national and international level, thanks to its X-band direct reception antenna, with a range of 2800 km covering 24 countries. Thus, today AGEOS mission includes the fight against global warming, the securing of borders, the fight against illegal fishing, the fight against piracy, the monitoring of marine pollution, the prevention of floods and the sustainable management of natural resources. AGEOS has a role in the Gabon’s space program, whose principal mission is to put in place an infrastructure of satellites data in order to support operators from all walks of life and to provide them with information.

So far, the most relevant initiatives in which AGEOS has been involved are:

  • RARS (Regional Advanced Retransmission System): this is a project led by the ACMAD in which four designed African countries (i.e., Gabon, Niger, South Africa and Kenya) will be receiving Low Earth Orbiting Satellite data to generate products that can be used for Disaster Risk Reduction modelling and the weather resilience in Africa.
  • CAFI (Central African Forest Initiative): the objective is to fight climate change, protect forests, reduce poverty and contribute to sustainable development.
  • OSFACO (Spatial Observation of Central and West African Forests): this project aims to improve knowledge of past and current dynamics in terms of land occupation and land use change. AGEOS was commissioned to map Gabon’s land cover in 2015 and its changes.
  • GMES & Africa:The objective is to address the growing needs of African countries to access and use of Earth Observation data for the implementation of sustainable development policies on the continent. The main thematic led by AGEOS in Central Africa Region is forest monitoring and assessment.

Mozambique

In 2012 the Mozambique Government decided to create the National Irrigation Institute (INIR, http://www.inir.gov.mz/). The institution oversees the agriculture area and aims to efficiently and sustainably plan, develop, exploit and manage land and water resources for agricultural production. The main mission of INIR is that of promoting a diversified and prosperous, more competitive and market-oriented agriculture, aiming to contribute to the achievement of the main national development objectives, namely, the reduction of poverty, improvement of food security and economic growth.

The main mission of INIR is that of promoting a diversified and prosperous, more competitive and market-oriented agriculture, aiming to contribute to the achievement of the main national development objectives, namely, the reduction of poverty, improvement of food security and economic growth. To reach these goals, the Decree 9/2012 assigned to INIR the following tasks:

  • Elaboration of strategies, norms, regulations, with a view to sustainable hydro-agricultural development;
  • Promotion of public-private partnership for the development of hydro-agricultural projects;
  • Mobilization of resources to finance hydro-agricultural programs and projects;
  • Definition and elaboration of programs and projects for hydro-agricultural development, in the Perspectives of the value chain;
  • Administration, management, protection and conservation of essential resources for agricultural activity, in particular land and water resources to ensure productivity in the agricultural sector;
  • Coordination and promotion of irrigated agriculture.

Within the framework of its activities, INIR works with farmers from both the public and private sectors, covering the following responsibilities:

  • Conduct irrigation training in irrigated areas taking into account the current context of climate change;
  • Assist irrigators in carrying out agronomic practices that contribute to greater efficiency in the use of water in irrigated fields, such as levelling the soil in rice fields to improve uniformity in water distribution and mulching to promote moisture conservation in the ground;
  • Support the irrigators in the design of business plans, in the choice of appropriate irrigation technologies, in the creation and consolidation of associations of irrigators;
  • Serve as a liaison between irrigators, research, and institutions involved in the value chain in irrigated fields.

IIAM (https://iiam.gov.mz/ ), Mozambique’s Institute of Agricultural Research, is part of the Ministry for Agriculture of Mozambique. It is mainly involved in disaster management activities through the provision of important baseline data sets. This includes a national soil map as well as information on land suitability for crops.

IIAM maintains also a large network of hydro-meteorological stations (~50% of the national stations).

South Africa

The South African Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI, https://sasri.org.za/) is a world renowned agricultural research institute at the forefront of a thriving sugar industry. Research at SASRI is clustered within four multidisciplinary programmes, namely:

  • Variety Improvement: this programme conducts research and implements strategies for the continual release of high yielding, adaptable, pest and disease resistant varieties that add value and enhance industry productivity.
  • Crop Protection: this programme develops integrated management strategies that minimise the effects of pests and diseases on crop production in a sustainable manner.
  • Crop Performance & Management: this programme develops models and better management practices to sustain and enhance sugarcane production within six broad areas (physiology, nutrition, soil health, residue management, cane quality management and climate change).
  • Systems Design & Optimisation: this programme investigates, develops and transfers innovative systems that optimise industry agricultural performance. Research, development and innovation is conducted in five main areas (production sustainability, water management, technology development, remote sensing and small-scale sugarcane farming).

An Extension Service provides the essential link between researchers and sugarcane farmers. SASRI also offers a range of services including fertiliser advice, disease diagnoses and education courses.