Crop Mapping Services for the Sudanese Government in Frame of the ESA Global Service Element "Global Monitoring for Food Security".

The Global Monitoring for Food Security (GMFS) focuses on those aspects of food security monitoring where satellite derived technology can bring added value. These include monitoring parameters reflecting crop condition, agricultural production and overall vegetation health. It aims to establish an operational service for crop monitoring in support of Food Security Monitoring to serve policy makers and operational users on various scales by providing spatial information on variables affecting Food Security. This article focuses on the service implementation, the modular processing systems and algorithms, applied to provide needed multi scale information on crop extent, crop condition and production for Food Security assessments and how this was demonstrated in the Sudan during the past crop seasons.