Satellite Based Information to Support Farming in Floodplains
Digitisation and using digital services can provide many opportunities for agricultural actors. One example of these digital technologies is geodata: information collected by drones or satellites that provides insights on for example weather patterns, crop growth and soil quality in a specific geographic location. The collected data can be used in a variety of ways by farmers and seed producers, with the overall ambition to increase global agricultural productivity and to become more resilient towards climate change impacts, crop diseases or pests and water scarcity. In this interview with Job Udo from HKV, we discuss an interesting example of using satellite based information for agricultural production in the White Volta Region in Ghana.
Could you tell us more about HKV and your work?
HKV is focused on flood risk and water resources management, with a specific focus on topics like early warning systems, nature based solutions and disaster management. Our main objective is to achieve water safety. In my role as Rivers, Coasts and Deltas Consultant, I focus on topics like floods, droughts, food and water, remote sensing and data scare regions, in particular in the African continent and Eastern Europe. I lived in Ghana for a year and with my work I hope to support countries in addressing water related climate stresses.
Can you tell us more about your work and specifically the project on optimization of crop growing periods in the White Volta region?
An interesting project I have worked on is in Ghana, on the White Volta river in the north of the country. This river has very wide flood plains, which is why farmers find it an interesting location for agricultural production. This river floods every year, which leads, on the one hand, to fertile grounds but also creates risks for farmers. Each year we see the same cycle in the region: in April and May, when the rainy season starts, farmers start planting. The rain moves further northwards towards Burkina Faso and fills up the basins and rivers. The resulting river flood peaks move in southern direction after some months, flooding the Ghanaian flood plains. Farmers need to harvest before the flood plains start flooding, but this is unfortunately very hard for farmers to predict. Therefore farmers chose either of two options: 1) the risk-adverse farmers start harvesting when they see water levels rising, although crops are often not yet fully matured or 2) risk-taking farmers leave their crops a bit longer with the chance of having higher yields, but also a higher risk of floodings and potentially losing their entire harvest. This last scenario we are seeing more and more, especially because of the additional impact of a water dam in Burkina Faso, just north of the White Volta region, that spills at a certain moment, exacerbating the floodings. Unfortunately, there is no communication or early warning on this from the Ghanaian or Burkina government, and therefore floodings have high impacts on food production and farmer livelihoods.
Can you elaborate more on how this situation affects seed producers and farmers?
What we often see is that farmers are using inadequate seeds for the region: in general, farmers use only one variety (the 120 days variety) and this growth period doesn’t match the growing season on the flood plains. The growing season here is determined by the difference between the rainfall onset (April/May) and flood onset (August/September). In the North, we see the growing season being shorter as rainy season there starts latest, while the floodings start earliest. However, throughout the region, the same variety is used.
What do you as HKV want to do to overcome these challenges in the White Volta Region?
What we aim to do is show this situation to farmers and to support them in understanding which crops and which varieties would be most suitable for them to use. Using satellite imaging, we have analysed the length of the growing season along the White Volta flood plain: we can see when the rainy season starts, when the flooding starts and the time in between indicates the growing season. As mentioned, there is a big difference between the length of the growing season in the region, which you can see on the below image. We want to share this information with seed producers, farmers but also government institutions and research institutes in Ghana, so they can all better predict what to grow and when, so we break this cycle of farmlands getting destroyed and harvest being lost each year.
Have you been able to get any of your findings and recommendations implemented in Ghana?
Within our project, financed by Nuffic, we have been able to train two local institutions on the model. Furthermore we presented the model and findings to the Ghanaian government and other donor organisations, but we furthermore also really want companies to start using the findings. We have for example translated these findings to the local context: one seed company started to register and produce a 90-days crop variety as this is more suited for especially the southern regions. Unfortunately, it has been challenging for them to sell it as they have a limited number of demonstration plots close to crop farmers. Furthermore, farmers also need to be informed better on this situation and understand how they can adjust to it, and how seeds of other varieties or with other maturity times can support them. Only 20-25% of farmers in the area buy seeds through formal channels, so it is a challenging area for seed producers to be active, but explaining what better adjusted varieties can offer to farmers would help a lot.
How scalable is this project?
The prediction of rainfall and flooding onset can be done for many other rivers; the only condition is that the rivers should be quite big with visible floodings on satellite images. The algorithm that we used is the same for all situations and using available satellite and precipitation data, we can easily predict growing seasons in other regions, so we can also support farmers and seed producers there on optimal growing seasons.
How can the SeedNL community support you in creating bigger impact of your work?
Until now, the impact of this work has unfortunately been rather limited: they have done some sharing of the findings within their programme and via (social) media, such as in local newspapers, but no companies or farmers have started using them. Our call to the SeedNL, but also Ghanaian and Dutch development communities as well as international donor orgnaisations, is to please start making use of this work. All information is available upon request, free of charge. The key for our work is that we want to make it practical and that farmers, seed producers or development partners make use of it.
