Satellite monitoring of quantity and quality of available biomass in pastoral livestock systems

Pastoral farming contributes 46% of GDP and is key to food and social security in LAC. Tools that improve their efficiency are needed to increase their profitability and sustainability.

Context of the story

Knowing the quantity and quality of biomass available for livestock (forage) is key to making management decisions that improve the productive efficiency and profitability of pastoral systems, while also allowing reporting and verification of GHG emission mitigation strategies. However, frequent farm-scale surveys are costly. In recent years, the availability of satellite data at a scale compatible with weekly management decisions of individual paddocks has increased, and prediction models for forage quantity and quality based on remote sensors are starting to appear. For this technology to result in productive improvements, it is necessary to have locally validated reliable models and mechanisms that make the information available to different users.

Remote sensors allow monitoring large areas and have information in almost real time

The Implemented Initiative

i) Generate and calibrate real-time prediction models of forage quantity and quality from remote sensors for relevant forage resources in 4 LAC countries with cold, temperate, subtropical and tropical, semi-arid and humid climates, ii) Validate the models generated in demonstration units and commercial farms, and iii) Manage the knowledge generated, training both technicians and producers as well as those responsible for national GHG inventories in order to ensure technology transfer.

Lower the cost of estimating in real time and with adequate precision the quantity and quality of forage in pastoral livestock systems through a satellite tool

The technological solution

A platform comprised of the national agricultural research and innovation institutes and other actors in the sector will be formed which, thanks to their regional presence and the extension, transfer and technological development activities that they carry out, will be key to achieving the objective and reaching all beneficiaries: family and business producers, livestock advisors, software developers and public officials.

"The profitability and efficiency of pastoral livestock systems depends largely on making management decisions based on the quantity and quality of forage. "

— Beukes et al. 2019 (doi:10.1071/AN17166)

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Type of project

Diagnostic Method

Applied

Technological-Organizational-Institutional

Cattle raising

Results

The regional monitoring network in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay produced an open-access metadata database of about 3,600 records, integrated into an automated digital workflow. These data were used to evaluate Sentinel-based machine learning models: forage quality (crude protein) showed more consistent and generalizable relationships than biomass, whose spatial and temporal variability guided the development of two tools combining satellite and field data. The first optimizes sampling by measuring only at points with extreme spectral index values; the second estimates forage stocks in real time by combining residual biomass measurements with growth models. Both were validated on working farms, with operational errors of around 20%. Dissemination and training activities reached more than 3,500 participants.

Relevant data