(28 July 2017)

User Workshops Summary & User Survey

The goals

In order to support food security from space, the innovative Food Security Thematic Exploitation Platform aims at simplifying the extraction of information from Earth Observation data for the advancement of data-intensive services in the food security sector mainly in Europe and Africa. To this end, two dedicated user workshops were conducted in June 2017 in order to

• Show the benefits of the TEP concept for agriculture (and aquaculture)
• Introduce the service outline of the Food Security TEP
• Assess gaps & needs of the users with regard to EO information services
• Involve the community in the service definition
• Animate potential Service Pilot Users
• Explore opportunities.

The 46 workshop participants came from all relevant agricultural sectors: public, farming, finance and Earth Observation and many of them are participants in the “Partnership for Growth and Sustainability” established at the Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture Workshop in ESA-ESRIN in Frascati (Italy) 10-11 April 2016.

The outcomes

During the workshops, the concept for the TEP as well as the planned service pilots were presented, and users had the chance to give feedback and opinions, both via the discussion as well as via a questionnaire.

Summarizing the outcomes quickly, the following statements can be made:

• All user groups are interested in using the Food Security TEP.
• Research institutes are most interested in bringing their own algorithms to the TEP, while the private industry likes the option of customized services best, where they can buy services from expert service providers.
• Almost everyone is interested in having a mobile service that allows the viewing of certain plant parameters on the field with a mobile device.

For the FS-TEP development team this feedback gives a good indication that what they have planned is on track and fits the user needs.

As expected, with a user group as diverse as the one for food security, when you go down to the details, there are many different wishes and requirements, concerning both functionalities and available data sets. What the users agree on, though, is that having ancillary data of good quality – e.g. topographical data, soil maps, meteorological data, administrative data - on the same platform as the Earth Observation data, is a feature that has so far been missing. Keyword here is “of good quality”. Rather than having the largest amount of possible options, most users stated they would prefer to have high quality data sets but also high-quality services available on the Food Security-TEP.

Still take part in the user survey!

And what about you? If you have become interested in the Food Security-TEP and see yourself as a potential user, it is still possible to take our user survey. Just fill it in and email it to us! Please find a more detailed presentation of the Food Security-TEP HERE and the survey HERE.

Participants of the User Workshops in Munich on the 01/06/2017 (top) and Rome on the 27/07/2017 (bottom)