Marie-Christine Delucq Geospatial Solution Developer for Institutional Agriculture
Airbus Defence and Space - Connected Intelligence
France

BiographyMarie-Christine Delucq is business developer for Institutional Agriculture at Airbus Defence & Space. She designs comprehensive solutions using satellite-derived analytics for Agricultural Authorities, in order to improve agricultural productivity as well as their information systems, and support farmers through improved best practices and agricultural policy implementation. AbstractKilimo satellite-derived analytics support food securityIncreasing agriculture productivity while preserving the environment and optimizing the resources is at stake in Kenya as in the agricultural policy of many countries whose governments are committed to supporting small holder farmers to achieve this goal. Airbus and his partners have implemented the KILIMO solution to support food security and agricultural digital transition with advanced analytics by combining geospatial imagery services and agro modelling.

A proof-of-concept ran in the Vihiga County in 2020-2021 with the financial support of French Ministry of Economy & Finance. KILIMO has demonstrated its capacity to build trust in the implementation of the agricultural policy. KILIMO supports counties with in-season geospatial statistics, farm evidence and crop assessment at field level, and provides farming advice to farmers through enhanced extension advisory services. The connection of KILIMO analytics to the agricultural policy, and more specifically to the farmer registration and subsidies e-vouchers program, permits to optimize the whole value-chain, enhance the capacity of extension advisory services and embark more small-holder farmers:
Machine-learning field delineation on very high resolution satellite imagery provides a skeleton of field polygons that allows enumerators to better assess field acreage and makes farmer registration easier.
Crop mapping allows to know where the crops are located and adjust accordingly the attribution of e-vouchers.
In-season crop monitoring, historical bare soil exposure, performance prediction, soil sustainability evaluation and advice to farmers allow extension officers to identify fields with crop development anomalies and bring cutting-edge customized support to farmer.
Geospatial statistics such as crop acreage and production estimates at district level, allow authorities to report on status and assess the impact of agricultural policies.

KILIMO solution therefore supports knowledgeable decision making, builds capacity of large number of extension officers, and promotes soil health and resilience to climate change. KILIMO builds trust in agricultural value-chains and subsidy systems.