Carbon Farming & Satellite Imagery
The world is in crisis, a crisis that has become inevitable. Climate change and global warming is now the biggest threat to mankind. But, before making a statement, how did we get into this crisis? Who are to blame for this chaos?
We, the humans, are the sole perpetrator. Industrialisation and a soaring surge in population have led us to burn more fuel, cultivate more crops and waste more natural resources. Thus, Mother Nature is returning the wrath. Now, the question is, how can we get ahead of the game? How can we save nature to ensure more stability and sustainability? The solution lies within our hands. It is simple, limit the emission of greenhouse gases.
Planting more trees is an obvious answer for capturing more carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in the wood and soil to keep our planet cool. But this isn't working since, instead of forestation, we're increasing deforestation in our desire for more food. So how to move forward?
To begin, we must stop deforestation and enhance food production on already available arable land. And in order to do so, we must embrace sustainable agriculture techniques, which may provide a chance to store carbon in agricultural soil. Let's investigate this idea — how can we go about doing so?
GHG Emission & Agriculture
The majority of the emission can be detected in industries, transportation, and agriculture. Today, our prime concern will be around the agricultural sector.
Agriculture is perhaps the world’s oldest venture. The human race started to evolve when they learned how to cultivate food. Today, modern technology, machinery, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides have increased overall food production. But it came with a considerable price.
Plants have been absorbing and storing carbon in the soil for ages through photosynthesis, the soil retains more carbon than the atmosphere. The organic carbon content of the soil should have been increasing year after year as a result of this natural process. However, as a result of modern farming techniques like tilling and synthetic fertilizing, agricultural land began to release more carbon rather than retaining it in the soil. As a result, agricultural fields have become the epitaph for carbon emissions.
Carbon Farming: Small Steps Towards Big Change
Carbon farming not only reduces carbon emissions from agricultural activities but also captures carbon from the atmosphere and stores it in the soil. Though it is a delicate balance, it is a revolutionary cultivation method that has the potential to make agriculture more sustainable and, along with forestry, another saviour of our planet.
However, carbon farming is not an easy process to follow. There are many strings attached to make perfect harmony. Cover-cropping, conservation tillage, rotational grazing, enhanced water management, a decrease of synthetic fertilizers, and other practices, for example, must all be maintained in tandem to be successful with it.
Now, what role do remote sensing and satellite imagery play in this?
How does the Satellite imagery benefit Carbon Farming?
As we speak, carbon farming has the potential to turn the table upside down. However, we will have to be smart, efficient, and adaptive to execute this massive movement. Using our assets and technologies is the main breakthrough point of this agenda. Satellite imagery is yet another Jack of All Trades.
According to the European Space Agency, a satellite can observe all of the world's fields every five days, and daily field monitoring is achievable with Planet Dove satellites. With this much information and overwatch, why sectors like agriculture haven’t utilized it yet? Today, the amount of information that we still have in our satellite database can change the course of the game. Current and historical crop health analysis, plant nutrition demand estimation, weather & climate monitoring, soil moisture status evaluation, and personalized recommendations are all possible with satellite intervention.
Carbon farming is a delicate process that needs a thorough understanding of the balance of various agricultural activities. In order to do it effectively, you must have access to all available information. What better method to keep track of agricultural activities and gather agricultural data than via satellite monitoring, which can provide us with virtually daily information at an unprecedented speed and at low cost?
Cover crop detection: Cover crops are planted in-between seasons when no other crops are growing. These plants keep the soil covered and undisturbed, lowering soil carbon emissions and capturing carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. As a result, this is a carbon farming activity that may be rewarded. The problem is keeping track of this activity on a global scale. The answer is to utilize satellite imagery to determine how many months a field remains green throughout the year. It should, in the best-case scenario, remain green all year. If this is the case, we may use satellite imagery to confirm that the farmer follows sustainable agricultural practices.
Conservation tillage verification: Planting crops with little soil disturbance is what conservation tillage is all about. Plowing in the traditional manner causes a lot of soil disturbance. In such circumstances, the soil's carbon is released into the atmosphere. Carbon emissions are the end result. Farmers may plant crops with minimum effort and soil disturbance using agricultural drills and other tools. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite imagery, which is sensitive to surface roughness, may also be used to monitor soil disturbance. Another method of verifying a sustainable agriculture practice that can be rewarded.
Crop rotation monitoring: The nutritional composition of the soil will benefit from crop rotation. Planting wheat, for example, will lower the nitrogen content of the soil. So, plant a crop the following year that does the opposite to balance the soil nutrients, such as legumes, which can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. Crop classification based on satellite data for prior years can also verify this healthy crop rotation. Then we'd know what was grown in a given field, and we'd be able to tell if the crop rotation was sustainable or not. Monoculture is harming the environment in some locations, like in the United States, where corn is grown after corn.
Sustainable nitrogen fertilization practice: The nutrition of the crops is maybe the most discussed issue. For decades, fertilizer has been the primary driver of increased yield. However, this reached saturation, and we are sometimes over-fertilizing our fields, contributing to GHG emissions and contaminating our groundwater. According to the FAO, worldwide nitrogen usage efficiency is around 40%, implying that most applied nutrients are simply lost to the environment.
We can spoon-feed the plants by applying fertilizer when it's needed, where it's needed, and how much of it is required for optimal plant development by using satellite images. At scale, optimal fertilizer recommendations may be produced, which may help farmers adopt precision farming techniques, significantly reducing fertilization application rate without affecting the yield.
Image: Fertilisation map of Spacenus’s “ANA” webapp, generated with few clicks within seconds
The problem here is ensuring that farmers are fertilizing sustainable. Although satellite imagery cannot directly verify fertilization practices, satellite-based fertilization recommendations can be used as a tool to regulate field-based fertilizer application limits. Such type of legislation currently exists but at the county level. The fertilizer ordinance in Germany or the EU Green Deal intends to reduce fertilizer use by 20%, yet there is no efficient way to enforce it. Fertilizer rate recommendations based on satellite images might be a valuable tool for field-level fertilizer regulation. This will also help with carbon farming activities, which also may be rewarded.
Soil carbon status monitoring: According to current soil carbon verification methods, we must test soil throughout time to determine its carbon content, and at the end of the day, this proves that a particular quantity of carbon has been sequestered, and the user can be compensated per ton of carbon sequestered into their soil. This implies we'll have to do a soil test. Now, the question is, how often we should sample the soil — once per hectare? In that situation, we would need to gather 50 soil samples for a 50-hectare field, which would cost 2500 euros assuming each sample costs 50 euros. Taking one sample in each field is also not optimal because soil carbon varies significantly from one hectare to the next.
Image: Soil Productivity Map of Spacenus
A soil productivity map based on satellite images can aid in this situation. The assumption is that greater biomass generating regions store more carbon, and we can locate such high biomass production areas using historical satellite imagery. As a result, we may divide the 50 hectares of fields into many zones and conduct zone-based soil carbon testing, significantly lowering the cost of soil carbon testing. For example, we may categorize the 50 hectares fields into five zones based on historical biomass accumulation and find five ideal spots within those five zones, representing the soil carbon status of the whole zones. In that instance, we may do only five soil carbon tests rather than 50 and yet get the same results. As a result, we can cut the cost of soil carbon testing tenfold. Additionally, because we would need to gather considerably fewer soil samples than previously, this strategy will greatly minimize the human resources cost.
How does Carbon Farming benefits Agriculture?
Carbon farming assists us in addressing our climate change challenge and assists agriculture in becoming climate-resilient. We may implement sustainable agricultural techniques using satellite imagery, which will sequester carbon and allow us to achieve several agricultural milestones. These are the following:
You will increase organic matter and improve soil health.
You will be able to limit the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.
You will be able to reduce soil erosion and increase the water infiltration capacity.
You will be able to reduce fuel consumption caused by tilling etc.
Final Thoughts
Spacenus is working day and night to innovate new technologies that can change the face of the existing agriculture. In simple words, our mission is not to find more lands to cultivate. Our Mission is to grow five tomatoes instead of 3 in the same plant. There is no doubt that satellite imagery and AI are the future for carbon farming. We should all embrace the change and prepare ourselves for a better future.