Earth-i receives £2.7 million from UK Government to improve crop yield for African coffee farmers

Earth-i has been awarded a grant of £2.7 million from the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme, which supports UK space firms tackling global challenges. The grant will enable Earth-i to launch the ACCORD programme in Kenya and Rwanda. It combines Earth-i’s very high-resolution satellite imagery with WeatherSafe’s data platform to provide extensive crop, weather and pest analysis - and shares the information via a mobile app. ACCORD will enable farmers to identify where more water, fertiliser or pesticides are needed to address unpredictable weather, pests, diseases, nutrient depletion or other factors which reduce coffee quality and quantity. ACCORD evolved from work carried out by Earth-i and Weathersafe in Burundi. Together the two companies performed surveys of Burundi coffee farms using very high-resolution satellite data, conducted crop yield analysis and developed bespoke web applications to deliver the results of this analysis. www.earthi.space