Growing resilience together: Digital Earth Africa and SASSCAL collaborate on AgriWatch

Agriculture is the heartbeat of Southern Africa. From smallholder farmers relying on rain-fed fields to regional governments tracking food security, decisions about land and crops directly affect millions of lives. Yet in the face of a changing climate, those decisions are becoming harder and riskier.

To help address this, on 1 September 2025, Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa) and the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) agreed to collaborate on strengthening agricultural monitoring through SASSCAL’s AgriWatch service.

Harnessing Earth Observation for Agriculture

This partnership brings together DE Africa’s expertise in satellite data and big-data analytics with SASSCAL’s AgriWatch initiative, which delivers timely monitoring tools to support agriculture and livestock management in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

AgriWatch is designed to bring farmers, policymakers, and communities closer to the data they need. Whether it’s tracking crop cycles, monitoring rangeland health, or anticipating rainfall. By tapping into DE Africa’s freely accessible datasets and cloud-based tools, the service will provide insights that strengthen decision-making.

At the heart of the collaboration is the development of the AgriWatch dashboard, an interactive platform that integrates DE Africa’s Earth observation products to provide timely, reliable, and actionable information for agriculture.

Building Capacity and Sharing Knowledge

The dashboard is only part of the story. DE Africa and SASSCAL will also focus on building capacity by running training workshops, sharing best practices, and developing case studies that show how Earth observation can support agriculture and climate adaptation.

This means that governments, academic institutions, private sector actors, and community organisations across the six SASSCAL member states will not only have access to data, but also the skills to turn it into meaningful solutions. In this way, the collaboration ensures that information does not just remain in servers but rather, it reaches the people who need it most.

A Step Toward Resilient Futures

The DE Africa and SASSCAL collaboration reflects a shared commitment to advancing sustainable development across Africa. With agriculture at the heart of livelihoods in the region, this partnership marks an important milestone in making science-driven solutions available where they matter most. Together, DE Africa and SASSCAL are putting powerful data into the hands of those shaping Southern Africa’s agricultural future.