Statistics from Space: Next-Generation Agriculture Production Information for Enhanced Monitoring of Food Security in Mozambique - Groundtruthing data collection and stakeholder engagement report

The Statistics from Space project (SFS) seeks to support the Government of Mozambique to produce and disseminate accurate crop production statistical data leveraging satellite remote-sensing data and artificial intelligence augmented analytics. The project, funded by the Government of the Republic of Korea (Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs; MAFRA), aims to provide the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with production estimates of major crops across three provinces namely Gaza, Manica and Zambezia in a sufficiently timely manner so that all market participants can use the information for decision-making.

SFS is a three years project and has four main components: (1) Stakeholders engagement for impacts, led by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); (2) Enhanced area sampling frame led by ITC/University of Twente; (3) Digital collection of groundtruthing data, led by Centre of Excellence in Agri-Food Systems and Nutrition (CE-AFSN) at Eduardo Mondlane University; and (4)Analytical framework, led by Seoul National University (SNU).

This Report is part of component 3 of the SFS project and has an overall objective to depict all activities carried out during the data collection process in the several districts of Gaza, Manica and Zambezia provinces which are the target regions of the project. The report also includes the methodology approach used since the interaction and involvement of local stakeholders. At the last sections, the report includes the main findings from the data collection process, challenges and constraints, lessons learnt and the next steps.