Inspiration
After some research we found out that domestic food production lands on the back of the small farmers of Morocco. Many of the corporate farms are in the business of export. So drought and desertification has been a consistent cause of food insecurity due to decreased crop yield for domestic consumption.
Morocco's national agricultural policy, "Green Morocco" addresses both small and large farms. Large farms tend to be modern, corporate enterprises utilizing intensive soil techniques, whereas their smaller counterparts use traditional agricultural methods. More than 70% of domestic food production relies on small farmers in Morocco, however, they only utilize 25% of cultivated land. Furthermore, land use and ownership is not clearly delineated.
To create sustainable farming practices, both scales of farming need to be studied to create best practices and distribution of resources. We are interested to see if the scale of farming results in different responses to drought, which has been a consistent cause of food insecurity due to decreased crop yield for domestic consumption.
What it does
We want to understand how differently small farms deal with these situations versus their larger counterpart. This model created helps us understand how drought and other natural events effect small farms, and how farms of different scales react to these events after the fact. We can monitor factors such as drought resiliency, behaviors after price hikes, verify farming technique efficacy.
Using some hypothetical data. we have sectioned off large, medium, and small farms. To identify the viable farmlands that have been planted and tilled with any sort of crop. By cross-referencing the area's NDVI data, we will be able to tell if viable lands have been planted and thriving or are they fallow because of crop rotation or drought. In the event of a drought, we would be able to easily identify and calculate wether or not this will effect food security and regional stability.
On top of providing geospatial information and helping researchers and policymakers to see correlating data. We also created a live reporting platform to help locals understand events happening at specific locations. Ideally used by the farmers themselves to update with what they see around them, creating a network of crowd-sourced information to empower small farmers as well as local governments to be more proactive in an event of a crisis. Realistically, may be used by the surveyors as a surveying tool for reports to local governing bodies and the Moroccan government.
How we built it
Challenges we ran into
A lot of these mapping technologies are very new to us. Learning them was very cool experience, but it did take a while to get there.
We had a interdisciplinary team, coming from different perspectives and had different ideas going into the project. We had some challenges with communication, but the result in a marriage of different diverse ideas and approaches to this project.
What we learned
Our team have learned a lot about geospatial imaging and utilizing these tools to have powerful information about our world.
Our hypothesis is that smaller domestic farms tend to be hit harder by these unforeseen events. The large farms ran by the corporations will push past the drought, but we will actaully need to wait to see if this true.
What's next for Moroccin
Using the data gathered overtime, a lot more can be monitored. Effects of drought and desertification over time on farmland that have been used in the past. Population displacement as a result of temperature changes. And much more.
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