Crop maps are provided at country level, exploiting the temporal variation in vegetation greenness and specific changes of agricultural land during the growing season (field clearance, sowing, growth, senescence, harvesting, etc.) to derive the two cultivated land and non-cultivated land classes. This service has a global coverage and applies to large agricultural fields (> 25ha) with low crop diversity.

The primary data sources are multi-temporal fAPAR1 (fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation) medium resolution (250–300m) optical images, leading to a map scale of 1:500,000 / 1:1,000,000. Wide areas (whole country, continent) are typically covered once every ten days during the entire growing season, to produce one map per growing season. Data (MERIS/MODIS and SPOT VGT have been main data sources to date) are available in current and past archives and future continuity is expected using data from PROBA V and Sentinel-3 satellites.

The product average thematic accuracy is about 75% for crop vs. no-crop classes. The processing method for this service may use, as additional input, a few ‘training’ high resolution maps for calibration. Accuracy of this auxiliary data might be a constraint to the overall product thematic accuracy.

Timeliness in production makes this product very useful for an early assessment of crop location changes with respect to previous years in support of early warning for food security purposes. In addition, its spatial and temporal consistency over wide areas proves the service useful as an indicator of favorable conditions for crops at country level and across different countries. In many countries (especially in Africa), information on the annually cultivated land is otherwise unavailable.

While continuity of this particular service is guaranteed in the future by forthcoming sensors, with similar characteristics to the currently used ones (e.g. Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) aboard Sentinel-3 and PROBA V), future availability of new sensors providing more frequent global coverage at higher spatial resolution (e.g. Sentinel-2) promises an whole-new, advanced version of this service with much improved spatial resolution.

Inter-seasonal map of growth activities based on the Indicative fAPAR Extent of vegetation Growth. It reflects the fraction of the solar energy which is absorbed by the green vegetation within each pixel. Credits: Federal Ministry of Agriculture Sudan, EFTAS