Framework of SAGI Agriculture Remote Sensing and Its Perspectives in Supporting National Food Security

Remote sensing, in particular satellite imagery, has been widely used to map cropland, analyze cropping systems, monitor crop changes, and estimate yield and production. However, although satellite imagery is useful within large scale agriculture applications (such as on a national or provincial scale), it may not supply sufficient information with adequate resolution, accurate geo-referencing, and specialized biological parameters for use in relation to the rapid developments being made in modern agriculture. Information that is more sophisticated and accurate is required to support reliable decision-making, thereby guaranteeing agricultural sustainability and national food security. To achieve this, strong integration of information is needed from multi-sources, multi-sensors, and multi-scales. In this paper, we propose a new framework of satellite, aerial, and ground-integrated (SAGI) agricultural remote sensing for use in comprehensive agricultural monitoring, modeling, and management. The prototypes of SAGI agriculture remote sensing are first described, followed by a discussion of the key techniques used in joint data processing, image sequence registration and data assimilation. Finally, the possible applications of the SAGI system in supporting national food security are discussed.