Global Food Security 29 (2021) 100543 2211-9124/© 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Global Food Security journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gfs A review of satellite-based global agricultural monitoring systems available for Africa Catherine Nakalembe a,∗ , Inbal Becker-Reshef a , Rogerio Bonifacio b , Guangxiao Hu a , Micheal Lawrence Humber a , Christina Jade Justice a , John Keniston a , Kenneth Mwangi c , Felix Rembold d , Shraddhanand Shukla e , Ferdinando Urbano d , Alyssa Kathleen Whitcraft a , Yanyun Li f , Mario Zappacosta f , Ian Jarvis g , Antonio Sanchez a a Department of Geographical Science, University of Maryland, College Park, 2181 Lefrak Hall, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA b World Food Programme, United Nations, via Cesare Giulio Viola 68-70, 00148, Italy c IGAD Climate Predictions and Applications Center, P.O. BOX 10304 - 00100, Nairobi, 254, Kenya d European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy e Climate Hazards Group, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA f Food and Agricultural Organization, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome, 00153, Italy g GEOGLAM, 7 bis, avenue de la Paix, Geneva, CH 1211, Switzerland ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Satellite Earth Observations Scalable Operational agriculture monitoring Open access Africa ABSTRACT The increasing frequency and severity of extreme climatic events and their impacts are being realized in many regions of the world, particularly in smallholder crop and livestock production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). These events underscore the need for timely early warning. Satellite Earth Observation (EO) availability, rapid developments in methodology to archive and process them through cloud services and advanced computational capabilities, continue to generate new opportunities for providing accurate, reliable, and timely information for decision-makers across multiple cropping systems and for resource-constrained institutions. Today, systems and tools that leverage these developments to provide open access actionable early warning information exist. Some have already been employed by early adopters and are currently operational in selecting national monitoring programs in Angola, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. Despite these capabilities, many governments in SSA still rely on traditional crop monitoring systems, which mainly rely on sparse and long latency in situ reports with little to no integration of EO-derived crop conditions and yield models. This study reviews open-access operational agricultural monitoring systems available for Africa. These systems provide the best-available open-access EO data that countries can readily take advantage of, adapt, adopt, and leverage to augment national systems and make significant leaps (timeliness, spatial coverage and accuracy) of their monitoring programs. Data accessible (vegetation indices, crop masks) in these systems are described showing typical outputs. Examples are provided including crop conditions maps, and damage assessments and how these have integrated into reporting and decision-making. The discussion compares and contrasts the types of data, assessments and products can expect from using these systems. This paper is intended for individuals and organizations seeking to access and use EO to assess crop conditions who might not have the technical skill or computing facilities to process raw data into informational products. 1. Introduction In 2019, Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) lost over 1, 500 lives owing to climate-related disasters, with over 1,300 from cyclone Idai alone (Nakalembe, 2020; Phiri et al., 2020; Devi, 2019). Other events recorded in 2019 included drought, multiple flooding events, land- slides, and a one in 25-year desert locust invasion in East Africa (Nakalembe, 2020; Kimathi et al., 2020; Salih et al., 2020). Although ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: cnakalem@umd.edu (C. Nakalembe). poor agricultural production (due to lack of inputs and being largely rain-fed) remains a major driver of food insecurity, the events outlined above directly and indirectly impact crop production and aggravate food insecurity. Political instability exacerbates food insecurity and many countries, such as South Sudan, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Somalia are unable to produce enough food or gain sufficient access to markets to feed their populations (Sasson, 2012). Political instability https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2021.100543 Received 11 January 2021; Received in revised form 19 April 2021; Accepted 25 April 2021