Ag Observatory

What is the Ag Observatory?

 

The PlantVillage Ag Observatory is a content management system for people who work with farmers in the Global South. In PlantVillage they are field officers. But with partners they are:

• Extension Workers. These are people who work for the Government and help farmers
• Charities. They often work with groups of farmers.
• Private companies. They can be companies like Pepsi Co who work with 50,0000 potato farmers for their Lays Chips. Or companies who provide technological solutions to farmers. They could be tractors, pesticides etc

The content that is managed are details on Lead Farmers (LF) (who have smartphones) and Following Farmers (FF). The LF travel to a FF field and register that field. They give it a name and the PlantVillage  app records the GPS. The LF might use of the tools such as Casssava Scout or FAW scout to check the plants. We have multiple AIs for different crops and where they have not yet been developed we have an  Other Crops function to upload images on any crops.

The function of the PlantVillage App is to provide a diagnosis. But for governments and other partners the details from the fields are also examinable with data we pull in from services like CHIRPS (precipitation) and satellites from NASA and soil data from iSDA Soil. This is coming from outside and will come into the PlantVillage Ag Observatory.  Please check out our video below and reach out for more information or set up a demo call with Michele Ferro, mxf5678@psu.edu. Thanks 

 

 

 

The Ag Observatory is designed to help organizations that work with farmers to have a free and reliable platform to interact and help farmers to increase their production and adapt to climate change.

• Researchers
• Extension Workers
• Charities
• Private companies