GLOBE Agriculture Campaign

Field Cover Intensive Observation Period (IOP)

NASA observations of agriculture provide information to help farmers manage crops, land, and livestock. On a large scale, NASA data has been used to enhance food security, stabilize markets, and support productive farming. Read more about NASA and agriculture. 

Scientists supporting NASA’s NISAR, SWOT, and EMIT missions are requesting your help collecting ground observations of agricultural fields to improve satellite observations. GLOBE volunteers in regions in which the growing season is starting can contribute now through March 2027 by submitting land cover observations. Observations are especially needed in South America, India, and California. 

How You Can Help

To support NASA agriculture science, take a GLOBE Observer Land Cover observation of farm fields between now and the end of the growing season following these instructions:
 

     1. Standing on the edge of a field, open GLOBE Observer Land Cover and take the required photos as directed. When you reach “feature photos,”
        take a photo focused on the field. Please avoid walking on privately owned land.

     2. In the field notes, describe the field state using one of the following terms:
            a. Crop growing
            b. Bare soil - tilled
            c. Bare soil - untilled
            d. Crop residue
            e. Fallow (plants are present, but it is not a crop)
            f. Open Water (rice paddy, for example) 

     3. If there is a crop growing, provide an estimate of the vegetation height in the field notes. Is the crop less than knee high, knee to head high, or             taller than head high?

Go Above and Beyond

If you own the land or have permission from the land owner to take measurements in the field, scientists would value measurements of row spacing, crop height, field size, and information about the type of crop growing. If you have permission to take these measurements, please contact us for instructions and a data sheet. 

How Does the GLOBE Agriculture Campaign Support NASA Missions?

The GLOBE Agriculture Campaign will provide data to support three NASA missions: NISAR, SWOT, and EMIT. 

What is NISAR? 
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite tracks disasters, monitors ecosystems and crops, and studies glaciers and ice sheets to understand how Earth’s surface moves and changes. To support NASA agriculture, NISAR  is tasked with monitoring cropland status, identifying if crop areas are under active cultivation or are fallow. The associated NISAR science requirement directs an 80% classification accuracy at one hectare scale for seasonal crops. The GLOBE Agriculture Campaign will provide verification data to assess NISAR’s capability to meet this objective. 

What is SWOT? 
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite was designed to survey all of Earth’s surface water. It carries a suite of instruments, including a radar interferometer that can measure the elevation of surface water on land. This information can be used to assess water resources on land, track regional sea level changes, monitor coastal processes, and observe small-scale ocean currents and eddies. 

SWOT returns a high backscatter signal similar to water for some agricultural fields. This has been identified as a confusion factor and source of potential error in SWOT surface water products. The GLOBE Agriculture Campaign may provide enough widespread data to help scientists better understand the signal and potentially refine SWOT surface water products. 

What is EMIT?
The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument is an imaging spectrometer that flies on the International Space Station to map minerals on Earth’s surface. EMIT data may be used to distinguish between vegetation, residue (plant material left after a crop is harvested), and soil. The GLOBE Agriculture Campaign will provide data that may help scientists distinguish between live vegetation, residues and dead vegetation, and bare soil.