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in 2008 the world experienced what has

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been referred to as a perfect storm of

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both natural and human events droughts

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and grain producing nations increased

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demand for meat the lowest reserve of

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food stocks on record and rising fuel

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prices led to what is referred to as the

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2008 global food crisis in the United

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States

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the results were $4 per gallon gasoline

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and higher costs for food staples in

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some regions of the world people saw

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their cost of food double or even triple

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how did a world so rich with food end up

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with such a vast problem to uncover the

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answers it pays to step back far back

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and get a global perspective

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NASA satellites monitoring our planet

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from space are in the perfect place to

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agriculture the process of growing food

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and fuel is usually far more complex

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than simply growing something and

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getting it to market because it's an

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integrated system now and we have to tie

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markets economies food aid political

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issues and yes making sure we have a

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stable economy and we have enough food

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to eat here all those things tied

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together require us to have a very good

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system of being able to monitor crops

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and food supply when you bring together

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the all the actors the people in the

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local communities the national

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governments the international actors all

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the NGOs and you bring them into a room

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the thing that everyone can really agree

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on the most is the remote sensing

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one of the best ways to gauge world food

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production at any given time is to

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monitor from space literally how green

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food producing regions are by looking at

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the greenness of a particular area

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scientists are able to tell how much

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photosynthesis is occurring therefore

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providing an indicator of how lucrative

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the harvest will be if you look at the

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terabytes of data that come out of the

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sky

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every day the most commonly used index

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is the vegetation index this indicator

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developed in the late 1970s by dr.

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Compton Tucker and his team at the NASA

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Goddard Space Flight Center is the

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normalized difference vegetation index

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or NDVI when you have these data you

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also are able to look at where you have

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better conditions for plant growth and

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worse conditions and this is where these

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data become really useful to look at

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agricultural production agricultural

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shortfalls because you have this history

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over many years and you know these were

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good years these were bad years the

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present year is somewhere in between so

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on and so forth it's really interesting

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indicator because it lets us see the

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health and the the productivity of

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plants and a wide variety of scale what

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it does is opens up to all those

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decision-makers who have to make

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decisions about their crops now they can

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be now serviced a lot better with us in

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but NASA looks at more than just how

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green our planet is day to day in the

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remaining five episodes of this video

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series we will examine in depth how

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remote sensing satellite data gives us a

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clearer picture of how our fragile

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natural resources such as rainforests

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are being affected by changing

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agricultural practices how communities

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facing disaster famine or human strife

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may be able to get access to food how

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precious water resources are being used

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around the world and even how our change

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in climate might alter the future of

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food in the wake of the recent crisis by

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using satellites to better understand

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how agriculture works today we're better

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prepared to face the challenges of

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climate change and increasing population