TAMPA, Fla. — The European Space Agency on June 6 launched a demonstration project to show how artificial intelligence can use satellite data to help certify organic cotton farms in India and prevent fraud.
The project trained software from German technology company Marple to detect cotton fields across the country using imagery from ESA satellites, primarily two Sentinel-2 spacecraft in polar orbit. , is intended to automatically classify according to cultivation method.
Marple piloted the feature with ESA in Uzbekistan two years ago, and said the software distinguished between organic and conventional cotton with 98 percent accuracy.
The India demonstration will be conducted in partnership with the Global Organic Textile Standards (GOTS), a non-profit organization that promotes voluntary global standards for the industry.
GOTS project manager Geoffrey Timm said training artificial intelligence in India, where climatic conditions are more diverse and organic cotton identification is more complex due to the prevalence of small plots and intercropping, will improve the accuracy of the software. said that it is important to improve
The software is designed to capture information from a series of sensors that provide data on vegetation, water, and soil, as well as indices such as the Normalized Vegetation Difference Index (NDVI), a measure of vegetation health and density. It has been.
Initial results from India are expected by the end of the year and GOTS will use them to improve yield estimates.
According to GOTS, the project will also help identify cotton fields practicing traditional and environmentally friendly farming practices that are potential candidates for organic certification, especially small farms that operate discreetly. deaf.
If a field that is certified organic is found to not meet standards, it will be flagged for investigation before the cotton is harvested.
“Part of the problem is that no one really knows how much unfair business practices are preying on the organic sector,” Tim said.
He added that it is difficult to know how much organic cotton actually comes from where there is no reliable data source on the number of organic cotton plantations in India.
ESA co-finances projects in India under the Business Applications and Space Solutions (BASS) program with GOTS. They put about €500,000 ($535,000) into the demonstration.
