Estimation of sowing dates at the village level: A probabilistic approach based on vegetation onset detections

The length of the crop season is a major determinant of yields in Sahel. Based on green-up onset detection derived from MODIS time series, this paper proposes a new methodology for the estimation of the sowing dates. It builds upon a novel stochastic model that translates vegetation onset detections around villages into sowing probabilities. Results for Niger show that this approach outperforms the standard method adopted in the region based on rainfall thresholds.