TechnoServe Labs is using satellite, aerial and drone imagery – coupled with TechnoServe ground truth data and machine learning – to improve how we manage and report on our programs.
Our Work
Geospatial Technology
Mapping smallholder cashew plantations to inform sustainable tree crop expansion in Benin
The University of Minnesota and TechnoServe published a research paper “Mapping smallholder cashew plantations to inform sustainable tree crop expansion in Benin” in Remote Sensing of Environment, the leading peer-reviewed journal on remote sensing technologies and applications.
University of Minnesota has presented the research at the American Geospatial Union –
An interactive dashboard for policy makers
TechnoServe Labs and the University of Minnesota created an interactive geospatial dashboard showing smallholder cashew growing areas in Benin, using satellite imagery and machine learning algorithms.
The public dashboard shows cashew growing areas. The private, access controlled dashboard shows additional data layers, including: training data, yield survey data for selected sites, drone imagery with canopy and tree counts for selected sites, tree densigy, nursery locations, warehouse locations, and deforested and protected areas. Together, these data layers offer policy makers the ability to target training and resources for the cashew sector.
TechnoServe Labs engineers and interns from Carnegie Mellon University – Africa in Kigali, Rwanda and CERCO Group and Epitech built the dashboard. The dashboard now covers Côte d’Ivoire and is being expanded to include all of West Africa.
Mapping half of global cashew production in West Africa
The University of Minnesota has now mapped cashew across all of West Africa – from Senegal to Nigeria with ~85% accuracy.
This research and the interactive dashboard will help field teams and policy makers more efficiently target training and resources. The work also will support work in the areas of carbon sequestration, deforestation monitoring and traceability.
The cashew mapping work was supported by Professor Kyle Davis at the University of Delaware to map cashew farms in Nigeria. Prof Davis and the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) used the NASA Harvest Helmet Cam data collection model for large scale ground data collection in Nigeria.
We shared TechnoServe ground data collection processes with a team from the Kansas State University Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL), funded by USAID Feed for Future to capture field data in Senegal.
Expanding the work to other smallholder tree crops
Finally, we are expanding our cashew smallholder mapping work to other tree crops. PhD candidate Angela Tsao of the Stanford Center on Food Security and the Environment is working with TechnoServe Labs to map mango and aquaculture sites in Côte d’Ivoire, adapting the cashew mapping algorithm for other tree species.
