GEOPOTATO

Geo data to control potato late blight in Bangladesh

March 20, Huib Hengsdijk

Table of content

Potatoes in Bangladesh Importance of late blight Objectives of project Late blight alert service Challenges and opportunities Consortium

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Potatoes in Bangladesh

≈ 450,000 ha 3rd potato producer in Asia 750,000 farmers 3rd crop in Bangladesh Cash crop Winter crop: November - March >90% for fresh market

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Potatoes in Bangladesh

The major problem: Late blight

(Phytophthora infestans)

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Late blight

Yield losses in Bangladesh: 25-60%. Fungicides to control late blight, but.... ...Too late or early, too much or little, or not the proper

type of fungicides:

● High environmental, health and financial costs ● Low yields, resource use efficiencies and profits

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GEOPOTATO - project

Objective Improve resource use efficiencies and profits in potato

production by providing a decision-support service for small farmers to control late blight How? By combining:

● Geo data ● Models ● ICT tools

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Farmer

GEOPOTATO: How does it work?

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Weather forecasting Crop growth model Crop development Observed weather

Late blight risk model

Spray advice

Where?

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Munshiganj

Rangpur area

What do we want to achieve?

Increased potato yields and production Increased farmer profit (expected 8,000 – 21,000 BDT/ha) More effective use of inputs, especially fungicides To have reached 100,000 farmers in 3 years Commercial viable late blight advice service for farmers

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Challenges & opportunities

Challenges: How to reach and gain trust of 100,000 farmers? Acceptability of advice by farmers Reliability of weather forecasts Mobile network in rural areas Opportunities: Smartphone offers customized late blight service alerts Late blight alert is interesting for other service providers The data, models and ICT tools can be easily used for

other services (yield monitoring and forecasting)

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Consortium

Partners

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Partner: Wageningen University & Research center

University and 9 applied research institutes 5,000 faculty staff & research staff; 9,000 students 3td in QS World University Rankings, Agriculture & Forestry Mission: to explore the potential of nature to improve the quality

of life

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Arnold Moene

Geert Kessel

Information From Satellite Images

Satellite image processing, map production and GIS analysis in the agro-environmental domain Optical & SAR Satellite, RPAS and Aerial Remote Sensing Specialized in the domains of Precision Agriculture/SMART Farming, Deforestation Mapping & Wetland Monitoring. Established in 2008, offices in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Paul van der Voet Eric van Valkengoed

Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies (BCAS)

Dwelling on long experience and reach team of skilled professional in advanced remote sensing BCAS will assist the GEOPOTATO team with advanced processing satellite images

BCAS will generate GIS and remote sensing based information to the team on crop assessment

crop health assessment

Change detection through out cropping season

Environmental analysis

Irrigated landscape mapping

Yield determination

Make ready the satellite data to be used for forecast generation Make ready satellite data for web-enabled services or web-based platform BCAS: provide weather data measurements of Bangladesh for the service as the service

has a control step in the weather forecasting with actual measured weather data . BCAS: Help to contract and support farmers to participate in this service ( BCAS would

collect and process meteorological data from Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) and prepare them forecast generation in conjunction with satellite data

BCAS Team

• Dr. Md. Abu Syed-PhD (Bergen, Norway, MSc. (remote sensing for NRM-itc, NL) BSc.

• Dr. Tanvir Hassan , ITC, NL • Ms. Umme Salma, MSc in RS and GIS-ITC, NL • Golam Mortuza, MSc in RS and GIS • Dr. Samarendra Karmaker, former Director,

Bangladesh Meteorological Department • Mr. Sunbeam Rahman, MSc in geoinformatics • Dr. Muslemuddin Ahmed, former Member

Director, BARC-agriculture scientist

• Our vision is a just world without poverty. A world where

people claim and assume their rights in a sustainable society. We believe that exclusion and scarcity, created and aggravated by unequal power balances, are the main drivers of poverty.

• ICCO takes an active roll in empowering for change. It calls for us to take an enterprising, result-driven and outward looking attitude. In all our work, it is not only the end result that counts: the process too, has an intrinsic value in boosting civil society.

• ICCO is the largest NGO in The Netherlands for agribusinesses in emerging markets. In 2013 we invested € 83,5 million. We advise and finance agribusiness entrepreneurs to support inclusive and sustainable business development in these markets.

• With 7 regional and 15 country offices and 335 employees in more than 44 countries we work local. We have alliances with more than 900 local partner organizations and support 146 programs.

• ICCO has been active in Bangladesh since 1971. We have worked with 22 local NGOs over these years. Our current projects include: PROOFS, SanMark CITY, Convening and Convincing.

Heleen van der Beek Country Representative

Prodip Mondol Inclusive Agri-Business Manager

ICCO SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA STRATEGY

Inclusive Market/Value Chain Development

Impact Investments and Business Incubation

Vocational Education & Training

Water & Sanitation Food and Nutrition Security

Access to natural resources, basic services, education

CSR 4.0/Business and human rights, inside out approach

BoP and co-creation for inclusion Inclusion: migrants, disabled,

women Evidence based lobby and policy

mPower

mPower

Consortium and roles

1. Wageningen UR: forecasted and observed weather, Late

blight risk model, crop growth model, project management.

2. TerraSphere: remote sensing land use & vegetation indexes.

3. mPower: ICT and local service owner.

4. ICCO: Farm business Groups reaching out to farmers;

5. BCAS (Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies):

Remote sensing data processing and analysis.

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Thank you

Questions & comments after the break

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