NASA is bringing more information to the agriculture industry

The contents of this blog come from an interview conducted by Addison Stoddard in Washington D.C.

NASA

2:00

"It's a common experience to hear the word NASA and think of astronauts, planets, and outer space. While those things are all part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,

NASA also contributes to agriculture information and data. I spoke with Karen St. Germain,

director of the Earth Science Division about what they can bring to the table," Stoddard said.

"NASA uses that unique vantage point of space to see the whole Earth system.

And that means we can see what is growing where. We can make estimates about the health of crops and we can measure things like soil moisture and groundwater and we can even see the recharging and depletion in aquifers as well as of course weather. So when we put that whole picture together, we can help farmers make the most informed on farm decisions they can make every day," St. Germain said.

"This information is accessible to farmers and ranchers in several different ways," Stoddard said.

"People probably don't know it but a lot of our data goes into the WASDE. It goes into the drought monitor for example. So there are those ways that our information helps decision making and then there are some really direct ways like we have an application that can run on your phone or your iPad called Open ET and that stands for Open Evapotranspiration. It is a field-scale map of Evapotranspiration," St. Germain said.

"St. Germain highlighted one of the goals of NASA to help farmers," Stoddard said.

"What we're really interested in is helping our own farmers maximize their production and helping our whole economy understand the global market," St. Germain said.

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