When the Fields Go Dark: Satellite Data, AI, and the Fight Against Food Insecurity
By Mary Mitkish
In today’s quickly changing world, shocks and disasters are inevitable. The food crises that result from them are not. From drawn out wars and conflicts that increasingly affect farmland and civilian food access to stronger and more sudden extreme weather events, pressure on the planet’s fragile food systems is growing. By 2050, we will need to feed 3 billion more people than in the 2010s. With more mouths to feed than ever before (and no slowdown on the horizon), the countless systems that support feeding our planet are stressed and threaten to upend everyday life as we know it. The issue isn’t lack of data. Far from it. It’s getting decision-ready intelligence to the right people. And most importantly, quickly enough to act on it before it’s too late.
For example, in the wake of Cyclone Freddy 69% of farmers surveyed reported flood damage to crops while some estimates report that up to one-third of the population was already facing extreme hunger. In Sudan, ongoing paramilitary conflict has affected 41 essential agricultural communities, severely disrupting planting and local food supply. Russia’s war in Ukraine has resulted in fallow fields along the front lines and a reduction in crop productivity contributing to the rise of food prices globally.
At the same time, food security data systems are going dark and official development assistance (ODA) providing food aid fell by 23.1% over the past two years. There is a hole in the food security response system: gaps in the agility of systems to respond to sudden shocks to agricultural production; blindspots in traditional ground survey systems when conflict or disasters prevent safe travel and data collection; and a disconnected set of assessment and response activities. The result is a response system that is increasingly being asked to do more with less.
That’s where RAAPID comes in. RAAPID (Rapid Agricultural Assessments for Policy Impact and Decision-making) is an agricultural information center that turns data into near-real-time assessments of agricultural shocks. A global network of experts validates and contextualizes these assessments, delivering actionable insights to help decision-makers respond to crises and build resilience. By working to address three main gaps – the visibility gap, the speed gap, and the coordination gap – that impede fast, targeted action, RAAPID’s centralized network pairs satellite imagery with socioeconomic and market data to map croplands, estimate yields, and project production, often where no one can safely reach the fields.
Of course satellite technology and imagery are nothing new, so what makes RAAPID’s approach so unique? The interpretation, not the imagery: Satellite imagery is commoditized. Interpretation isn’t. Anyone can buy a picture of a field; almost no one can tell a finance minister what it means for next season’s harvest in time for that answer to change a decision. RAAPID’s advantage isn’t necessarily the satellite or imagery. It’s the network of scientists, analysts, and local experts who turn pixels into analysis and recommendations that a government or humanitarian agency can act on.
We need to change how we prepare and respond to the growing threat of shocks. RAAPID is working to fill those gaps by building a unique capacity to quickly assess agricultural conditions when shocks hit the food system, and use satellites to monitor food production behind warfronts and beyond flooded rivers.
The Visibility Gap: When conflict or disaster cuts off ground access, the data goes dark. RAAPID reads the ground from space when no one can reach it. When war made large parts of Ukraine’s farmland too dangerous to survey, RAAPID could still see it. Satellite-based assessments filled critical information gaps across government-controlled and occupied territories, providing an independent view of agricultural conditions when traditional data systems could no longer reach the fields.
The Speed Gap: Assessments can take months. Shocks don’t wait. RAAPID delivers in days, while action can still change the outcome. In Kenya, RAAPID compressed the traditional assessment timeline from months to weeks – delivering biweekly, satellite-based assessments of drought conditions and maize production to Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture as the crisis unfolded. By combining rainfall, vegetation, temperature, evaporative stress, planting-window analysis, and yield forecasts into rapidly updated briefs and dashboards, RAAPID gave decision-makers an evolving picture of the production outlook while there was still time to act.
The Coordination Gap: In a crisis, analyses are scattered and arrive too late to line up. RAAPID connects them into one shared, transparent picture. As the super El Niño continues to develop, RAAPID closes the coordination gap by bringing together satellite observations, drought and crop-condition indicators, yield models, and field data to build a single, continuously updated picture of how ENSO-driven conditions are affecting agricultural production. By coordinating these analyses and validating them against conditions on the ground, RAAPID turns fragmented signals into timely, national-scale production estimates that can directly inform decisions on maize procurement, farmer support, and preparedness for emerging risks.
The next food crisis should not catch us by surprise. RAAPID is building the capacity to see agricultural shocks as they unfold—and increasingly, before they do—bringing together the science, technology, and global network needed to turn fragmented data into decisions at the speed of crisis. As weather extremes, conflicts, supply chain disruptions, and overall pressure on food systems intensify, RAAPID is expanding its network of scientific, government, humanitarian, and private-sector partners to bring rigorous agricultural intelligence where and when it is needed most. The goal is not simply to produce more assessments, but to build a faster, more connected way of understanding agricultural shocks—and ultimately, to ensure that the next crisis does not become the next food crisis.
