How Leading Agriculture and Food Companies Better Predict Supply and Demand with Earth Observation

This featured blog was provided by EarthDaily.

Food and beverage companies depend on raw ingredients like corn, wheat, barley, coffee, sugarcane, oilseeds, apples and many others. Yet, food crops are a finite resource, their yields dependent on environmental factors like consistent temperature and soil moisture. Additionally, human factors like supply-chain issues, disease outbreaks, political instability and war are extremely disruptive to food supply chain production and distribution, even when conditions like weather are ideal.

Data on crop progress cannot change field conditions across the world. However, daily information on how well crops are growing can translate into knowledge that allows food companies to prepare, plan and react to what’s happening very quickly. With the right insights, supply can be more accurately predicted, meaning business decisions can be made more strategically and confidently. For instance, actions such as proactive adjustment of sourcing and pricing strategies can reduce financial risk for companies — if they’re equipped with the necessary foreknowledge.

Today, the relationships between grain producers and food chain supply companies are global ones. Problems in the fields do not simply affect supply and demand within a single country or its neighbors. Instead, food manufacturers now source their grains globally, which means if the crops fail in one region, companies need to figure out, literally, where in the world they can turn.

And it needs to happen quickly. What food sources they’ll be able to access, where they’ll get them and in what quantities . . . all these are critical factors that allow businesses to estimate how much product they’ll be able to create, sell and distribute to their customers. Even small disruptions in the interconnected global value chain can have enormous implications for supply protection and demand generation.

The applications for this data go beyond sourcing foods for processing. For example, agricultural lending institutions can use it to forecast how well a borrower’s crops will do down the road. This means lenders have an additional source of information to assess the viability of a small farmer’s operation, even when that farmer doesn’t have the large amounts of capital that would ordinarily be required for a lender to extend credit.

The Power of Earth Observation

In the past, agriculture and food companies have relied on traditional crop monitoring information from government sources such as the USDA or Eurostat. But the wheels of government turn slowly, and with agencies typically putting out their reports on a monthly basis, the data they provide is often already out of date.

But now more than ever, industries of all types use satellite data to gather global context and improve their operations and practices. This technology has a long history of serving agricultural concerns, since Earth Observation can provide data on such factors as vegetation health, soil moisture and the impact of weather events — information critical to making plans about production, pricing and more, in near real time. These insights help companies know where there are issues affecting crop production, such as poor weather or delays in farming practices . . . and help them decide where to turn if there’s a disruption in the expected supply chain. And recent advances in quality, frequency and coverage mean the technology can now produce better data than ever.

EarthDaily Agro provides a combination of a powerful app, a robust data stream and expert analytical services. Its cloud-based geosys Platform monitors geospatial data to provide a daily virtual tour of farm production all over the world, sortable by crop.

From there, EarthDaily Agro’s agronomists and other experts around the globe break down the information, providing clients with insights and analysis to make critical decisions in response to changes in the agricultural environment.

Choosing an Earth Observation partner

EarthDaily Agro’s Earth Observation services combine broad coverage, high frequency and quality data that forecasts global crop production. The geosys Platform, EarthDaily Agro’s cloud-based tool, provides information about vegetation indices, agronomic analytics, weather data, notifications and warnings. Settings can be adjusted to focus on specific regions of the world.

What’s more, EarthDaily Agro’s team of specialists has deep expertise in the agribusiness market, with local agronomy experts across North America, South America and Europe (and soon the Asia-Pacific region). Analysts are available to provide expertise in both the agricultural and food-supply fields, as well as context about what’s happening in the food-producing countries themselves. Finally, EarthDaily Agro’s parent company, EarthDaily Analytics, will soon launch The EarthDaily Constellation, a new fleet of satellites that collect data from around the world continuously, and make it available to customers within hours. Once operational, the EarthDaily Constellation will be the world’s most powerful global change detection and analysis system specifically designed for agriculture.