Soil conditions, water availability, weather extremes and climate change can represent costly challenges to farmers. On the other hand, spacebased technology can help farmers and agricultural policymakers to enhance production and profitability, as well as reduce the negative impacts of these challenges on the environment. With this in mind, the National Space Science Agency (NSSA) and the National Initiative for Agricultural Development (NIAD) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as they enhanced cooperation in this important sector. The MoU was signed by NSSA’s CEO Dr Mohamed Ebrahim Al Aseeri and the initiative’s Secretary General Shaikha Maram bint Isa Al Khalifa. The MoU aims to provide technical support for projects that the National Initiative supervises its implementation, in addition to exchanging experiences and implementing courses and workshops to achieve the greatest benefit from space science and its applications in serving the agricultural sector in the Kingdom.
Dr Al Aseeri said that space science has a variety of uses, including remote sensing applications in the field of agriculture, which has caused a qualitative leap in the ability to determine the types of plants that are grown and the yields that are produced in any geographical area, as well as provide accurate information about the area of agricultural fields. It also estimates the amount of water required for irrigation and the amount of the expected crop is EGP. Space technologies has enabled the identification of dry or endemic agricultural areas, which contributed to avoiding fires and losing crops. Space science has provided a lot of information that has contributed to the protection and development of the agricultural sector in various regions of the planet. “We are looking forward to enhancing work with the NSSA to ensure the best common achievements in a number of projects, and to benefit from the expertise available to the NSSA in the field of preparing studies based on images and satellite data, including data that serve the agricultural sector,” Shaikha Maram said. Agriculture was a major and important sector of Bahrain’s economy historically and date cultivation was the main dominant in the Kingdom’s agriculture producing sufficient dates for the local consumption and export. While there was indeed the threat of Bahrain’s agricultural production decreasing due to its lack of water resources and shortage of land, the implementation of alternative crop production methods has left the hope of an increasingly more sustainable future for the kingdom. According to a Mordor Intelligence report, an organisation that specialises in delivering data and insights on market trends, Bahrain agriculture is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 1.50% starting from 2019 to 2024.