Crop Monitor

The Crop Monitors were designed to provide a public good of open, timely, science-driven information on crop conditions in support of market transparency for the G20 Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS). Reflecting an international, multi-source, consensus assessment of crop growing conditions, status, and agro-climatic factors likely to impact global production, focusing on the major producing and trading countries for the four primary crops monitored by AMIS (wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans). The Crop Monitor for AMIS brings together over 40 partners from national, regional (i.e. sub-continental), and global monitoring systems, space agencies, agriculture organizations and universities.

In line with the goals of the GEOGLAM initiative, the Crop Monitor methods were then adapted and applied to countries at risk of food production shortfalls. The need for an assessment that is prepared horizontally by different international, regional, and national agencies, with overlapping regions, is fundamental in unstable and fragile countries where food security is extremely vulnerable. The success or the failure of a crop for such countries sometimes mean famines, political unrest and the need to import from other countries. These countries, which principally complement geographically the large market producers, are monitored and reported on in the Crop Monitor for Early Warning (CM4EW) reports.