• H2020
• Policy & Research

AfriCultuRes (African Agricultural Systems with the Support of Remote Sensing) is the Horizon 2020 project that won a call on using Earth observation (EO) technology for improving food security in Africa.

Better prediction and management of production and supply of food in Africa is the aim of the project AfriCultuReS, which has been launched in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The project has 17 partners, seven of which are located in African countries (Tunisia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa), and receives about €8.5m of EU funding.

It is one of the cornerstones of the strategy of the European Commission to intensify the co-operation with African partners, contributing to the European Union-African Union partnership while promoting and supporting the activities of the Group on Earth Observation and its flagships, EuroGEOSS and AfriGEOSS.

The Ethiopian Minister for Water Irrigation and Electricity, Dr Seleshi Bekele, emphasised the importance of co-operating with the EU for achieving sustainable development goals, highlighting that with projects such as AfriCultuReS, this co-operation is entering a new phase.

The project brings together a large variety of data from different sources such as the EU’s Copernicus programme, ground-based observations and models.

It develops crop yield predictions and other services, as well as decision support tools for policymakers.

The project’s strength is the strong African participation and the significant involvement of users in the development of services and tools that the project is delivering.