In perhaps a first of its kind, a C5 pilot project—Combat Against Climate Change on Cotton Communities—is under way in Bangladesh that hopes to assist farmers plan for extreme climate change that may affect their ability to farm.
FEASIBILITY STUDY: Set up by Cotton Connect and Assimila and supported by the European Space Agency’s EO Science for Society Programme, the feasibility study is exploring how climate advice could help farmer decision-making at key stages in the cotton production cycle.
- The C5 prototype is being developed for users in Bangladesh with a view to rolling out to other major cotton-producing nations.
- C5 is designed to help farmers mitigate threats to their health, in addition to their crops, and is the first system of its kind to focus on the lived experience of cotton farmers and pickers.
- It comprises two main elements, a health ‘stress’ index to identify where health risks (such as heat stroke and exhaustion) are increasing in order to plan and manage farming activities, and an alert system providing extreme weather warnings, alerts and actionable information at key milestones during the cotton calendar.
- C5 information will be disseminated to farmers through text messages, radio broadcasts and outreach groups and aims to limit worker exposure to harmful heat, avoid significant risks such as flooding, and improve related activities such as crop production and livestock rearing that are also threatened by climate change.
THE HOW: Farmers and cotton stakeholders in Bangladesh will use novel cotton mapping data products derived from Sentinel-2 images in a feasibility study run by CottonConnect and Assimila.
- Access to a wealth of climate and satellite data such as Sentinel-2 data is key to generating actionable information that will help farmers to make a step change in the way they manage their environment, including understanding and tackling the effects of climate change and safeguarding their health and wellbeing.
THE ORGANISERS: UK-based Assimila, an Earth observation (EO) consultancy and research & development organisation, will provide Earth observation and climate data analysis.
- CottonConnect,with its outreach to cotton farmer communities, will facilitate data collection.
WHAT THEY SAID:
We know that smallholder farmers are already facing the impacts of climate change. This significant partnership, supported by the European Space Agency, brings Assimila’s expertise in Earth observation, modelling and computing together with CottonConnect’s experience of working with rural communities to address climate-related changes that we see all too often among our farmers. We’re optimistic that access to improved forecasting tools will help them develop more sustainable cultivation practices by helping them understand, monitor and even predict the environment in which they are farming.
— Alison Ward
Chief Executive Officer
CottonConnect
C5 will support cotton farmers adapt to changing climate factors by providing state-of-the-art, up-to-date information focused on issues affecting the health of cotton growers. Exploiting advances in Earth observation and climate data science, C5 will generate a range of hazard indices and alerting services to inform support mechanisms for farmers and workers.
— Andy Shaw
Director
Assimila
