Micronutrient deficiency is prevalent in parts of Africa

ESA-funded research shows that the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission and the Italian Prisma mission could be used to monitor the nutritional content of staple crops. This could, for example, help farmers take appropriate steps to boost the quality of their crops as they grow.

Malnutrition from a lack of micronutrients such as calcium and potassium affects more than two billion people – that’s over 25% of the global population. This is particularly relevant for countries in Africa, for example, where macro- and micro-nutrient deficiency is particularly prevalent.

As part of the EO4Nutri project, scientists from the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the National Research Council of Italy led research into the potential of using satellites to monitor crop nutrients over large areas and that would give sufficient time for farmers to intervene with fertilisers or other agricultural practices before they actual harvest.
The team’s results have been published in the journal Remote Sensing of the Environment.

The project plans to further investigate the potential of satellite observations to estimate the nutrients of staple crops in African countries and with a focus on Ethiopia.

Read full story: Measuring nutrition in crops from space