Use of Earth observation data in agribusiness

The application of Earth observation to agricultural monitoring has been a growing field. In Europe the MARS programme (Monitoring Agriculture by Remote Sensing), sponsored by the European Commission, has done much to develop the field and bring it from a research curiosity to operational status for monitoring agricultural fraud within the Common Agricultural Policy and providing inputs to the generation of agricultural statistics. The technology also offers potential within a variety of agribusinesses where it can make a cost effective contribution in decision making processes. This paper illustrates the use of Earth observation data in agribusiness by giving examples from Logica´s portfolio of applications. Two different applications are discussed in detail: a yield prediction, with particular reference to sugar beet; and a land cover classification, with particular reference to UK potato crop monitoring