SERVIR AppTemplate

About the Farm Action Toolkit

SERVIR's Farm Action Toolkit was co-developed alongside several implementing partners in Bhutan to support their mission to secure adequate food for the Kingdom and save operational costs while doing it. This service provides 30-meter scale cropland, paddy, and maize area maps and paddy yield estimations covering mountainous and marginal farmlands across Bhutan for all years from 2002 to 2023.

Core Functionalities

Area Crop Mapping

Provides detailed maps of cropland, paddy, and maize area in Bhutan.

Paddy Yield Estimation

Estimates annual paddy yield at various scales for informed decision-making.

Historical Data Analysis

Enables analysis of changes in paddy fields and yield over past years.

Benefits & Impact

The Farm Action Toolkit offers valuable benefits for Bhutan's food security efforts, including:

Understanding changes in paddy area and yield over time.
Analyzing the impact of policy changes on food security.
Guiding decision-makers towards sustainable agricultural practices.

Target Users

This toolkit is designed to empower various stakeholders, including:

Government Organizations

Utilize the toolkit for informed policy decisions and resource allocation.

Researchers & Academics

Gain insights into Bhutan's agricultural trends for further research.

Farmers

Access relevant data to optimize crop management practices.

Team Members

Aparna Phalke

Dr. Aparna R. Phalke is currently a lead for the Agriculture and Food Security thematic area of SERVIR global (Science Coordination Office) a joint program of NASA and USAID based at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. She is also affiliated as a research scientist with Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Her research interests include developing innovative and applicable tools and algorithms through satellite data and advanced technologies such as large data AI models for agricultural areas and production monitoring. She has published her work on impact of policies on agricultural land use change and agricultural monitoring using satellite data. Her work at SERVIR supports the smallholder farmers across developing countries in their decision-making. Her research work has included geographic coverage of globe covering countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, India, Kenya, continental Europe, Middle East, Russia, Central Asia. She has pursued her PhD from University of Wisconsin and graduate education from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand and Marathwada Agricultural University, India. Her passion lies from her childhood roots in a small village vulnerable farming community in India. Through SERVIR, she is converting her passion to action while connecting space to villages for agriculture and food security challenges with the larger team of scientists.

Sarah Cox

Sarah Cox is a Research Associate with The University of Alabama in Huntsville Lab for Applied Science and SERVIR Global, a joint NASA-USAID funded applied science program based out of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Sarah has a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia. She also earned her Master’s degree in Environmental Science and Policy from four different European universities as an Erasmus Mundus Scholar. For her Master’s thesis, Sarah worked alongside Elephants Alive! and Transfrontier Africa to analyze drivers of elephant-train collision in South Africa. She’s also worked with farming communities around the world to record stakeholder perspectives on environmental issues. Sarah’s passion for promoting a more peaceful coexistence between people and wildlife drives her research interest in wildlife management and equitable conservation. Sarah's current work with SERVIR will advance crop yield monitoring in Bhutan, with the ultimate aim of deriving timely, accurate forecasts of agricultural productivity to inform regional management decisions regarding food security and land use.

Billy Ashmall

Alex Goberna

Mission Statement

SERVIR’s Bhutan Farm Action Toolkit is dedicated to advancing crop yield monitoring in Bhutan using NASA earth observations. Developed in response to locally-identified needs, the project aims to support local partners in using geospatial modeling methods with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to produce consistent, timely and reliable estimates of crop area and yield at field to national scale. The ultimate goal of this work is to inform regional management decisions regarding food security and climate resilient sustainable livelihood...

Farm Action is brought to you by SERVIR, a joint initiative of NASA, USAID, and leading geospatial organizations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, SERVIR partners with countries and organizations to address critical challenges in climate change, food and water security, water-related disasters, land use, and air quality.

For more information on the SERVIR program, visit https://servirglobal.net

Disclaimer

SERVIR's standard disclaimer is

SERVIR Program, NASA, USAID and SERVIR partner organizations make no express or implied warranty of this application as to the merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Neither the US Government nor its contractors shall be liable for special, consequential or incidental damages attributed to this application.