Canada’s Agriculture Department Teams With European Space Agency

Radar Satellite Technology Potential New Tool for Farmers

Canada and Europe are often keen competitors, not only in international sporting events, like the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, but also in the global business arena. 

In an interesting turn of events, these two major players have teamed up and joined forces to cooperate on a project that is not only out-of-this-world, it could also lead to more cost-effective, productive and sustainable farming worldwide.

Their common goal is an international project, called AgriSAR.  Canadian and European researchers are exploring whether radar images taken from space can be a reliable tool for agricultural and other purposes. Information gleaned from AgriSAR is being examined by interested researchers around the world for use in land cover mapping, crop management and new applications tailored to environmental monitoring.

Using satellite radar imagery gathered by the Canadian RADARSAT-2 satellite, the European Space Agency (ESA) collected data over the 2009 growing season from the fields around the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Research Farm in Indian Head, Saskatchewan, and in two other locations, Flevoland in the Netherlands and Barrax in Spain.
As part of the project, AAFC scientists working on the ground at the Indian Head Research Farm collected and analyzed information about land cover, crop type and condition, crop biomass, grain yield, surface soil moisture and weather.

AAFC Indian Head researcher Dr. Guy Lafond helped to organize the study. “Indian Head was considered ideal for ground-truthing radar data because the area produces a wide variety of crops,” said Dr. Lafond. “Looking at the two sets of data, we could substantiate whether radar technology readily distinguishes between crop types and conditions.”
The ESA considered the Canadian satellite ideal for gathering the radar images used in the AgriSAR project. RADARSAT-2 is owned by British Columbia-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), the company behind the Canadarm used on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. Launched in 2007, RADARSAT-2 is regarded as the world’s most advanced radar satellite. Unlike spectral imaging satellites, MDA’s microwave-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can provide high-definition images at night and through cloud cover. Canada is a leader in SAR technology.

The AgriSAR project is not the first time Dr. Lafond has used a satellite as a research tool. His previous experience includes work with the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, and an ongoing collaboration with specialists such as Dr. Joe Piwowar at the University of Regina and Chris Holzapfel of Indian Head Agricultural Research Foundation to investigate the usefulness of SAR data for classifying crop type and estimating crop yield.

“MDA offered our team a chance to cooperate on a unique space-based project,” said Dr. Lafond. “What was especially interesting was being able to collect RapidEye satellite images and cross reference that data with data from a GreenSeeker optical sensor.”

The RapidEye system is a network of five optical remote sensing satellites built by MDA for RapidEye AG in Germany. This system provides ‘multi-spectral’ images from light reflected off the Earth’s surface for different wavelengths. The GreenSeeker system, made by California-based NTech Industries, has ground-based sensors to provide data that can be used for a variety of purposes, from mapping crop condition to evaluating irrigation strategies and even determining optimum harvesting dates.

Dr. Lafond is enthused about Indian Head and AAFC being involved in more projects of this kind in the future.

“What particularly excites me,” he said, “is a combination of things: the advantages of such technologies and the adaptations that could be made. For example, if there would be a way of estimating soil moisture at different depths for individual fields in the spring, then farmers could adjust their crop and fertilizer decisions. Quickly estimating seeded acreages and tracking crop development around the globe would be useful to grain marketing firms. Even the idea of robotics in agriculture — future developments with sensors on the ground and in space make that a real possibility. When these innovations help us make better use of our resources, and safeguard them, all Canadians will benefit.”