Using ICT for remote sensing, crowdsourcing, and big data to unlock the potential of agricultural data

Woodard, Josh; Andriessen, Mechteld; Cohen, Courtney; Cox, Cindy M.; Fritz, Steffen; Johnson, Drew; Koo, Jawoo; McLean, Morven; See, Linda; Speck, Tara; and Sturn, Tobias. 2017. Using ICT for remote sensing, crowdsourcing, and big data to unlock the potential of agricultural data. In ICT in Agriculture (Updated Edition) : Connecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks, and Institutions, World Bank. Section 4: Improving Public Service Provision, Module 15, pp. 401-431. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://hdl.handle.net/10986/27526

By 2050, the global population is projected to reach approximately 9 billion. Population growth will be concentrated in poorer countries, particularly the low-income countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. By some estimates, agricultural productivity will need to double to meet everyone’s needs for food (Foley 2014). For instance, if current trends continue, yields of the world’s foremost food crops—maize, rice, wheat, and soybeans, which supply roughly two-thirds of calories consumed globally—appear likely to grow significantly more slowly than required to meet the projected global demand in 2050 (Ray et al. 2013). Some productivity growth will come from using more of the world’s arable land for agriculture, but most of the available arable land is unevenly distributed, and about half of it is found in only seven countries.