The Crop Monitor for AMIS assessments have been produced operationally since September 2013 and are published on a monthly basis in the AMIS Market Monitor Bulletin. The Crop Monitor reports provide cartographic (Figure 2), pie chart (Figure 3), and textual summaries of crop conditions as of the 28th of each month, according to crop type. These are developed using a transparent approach, with contributions from over 35 national and international organizations (Table 4).
Working closely with the AMIS Secretariat, GEOGLAM has iteratively improved the Crop Monitor bulletin, and released a set of customized products including global crop condition maps and pie charts that depict crop stage and crop conditions by region, as well as climatic drivers affecting these conditions. These provide a global perspective on crop conditions for a policy and economics-oriented audience, and have been evaluated by AMIS Market Monitor users as one of the most interesting and valuable constituents of the reports.
The Crop Monitor is the first time the international community has come together to produce operational crop condition assessments that reflect an international consensus and as such has received strong high-level support from a range of ministries. It has proved to be an effective mechanism for coordination. Based on its success, a new initiative is in development within Countries-at-Risk in collaboration with the primary agencies monitoring these regions, known as the Early Warning Crop Monitor. In addition, Crop Monitor prototypes are being developed at the national scale as a mechanism for developing operational national bulletins.
The Crop Monitor for AMIS is led and coordinated by the University of Maryland and GEOGLAM Secretariat, with support from NASA, and is carried out in close collaboration with the various international monitoring systems (Table 4).
For more information as well as copies of full reports, proceed to www.geoglam-crop-monitor.org
Leadership (Point of Contact) Name, Institution, and Email:
Inbal Becker-Reshef, University of Maryland Center for Global Agricultural Monitoring Research, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.