Space Applications in Agriculture: Enhancing Food and Water Security, Improving Climate Action

The report argues that space-borne insights could address up to 30% of the projected 2050 food gap and reduce agricultural CO2 emissions by 50 million tonnes. It identifies five core use cases: yield estimation, yield optimization, sustainable practice bolstering, natural disaster mitigation, and precision agriculture. While historically limited by cost and resolution, the market for these insights is projected to reach nearly $1 billion by 2030, driven by a 25-50% expected decline in high-resolution imagery costs. The document emphasizes that scaling these benefits requires cross-industry collaboration to provide 'ground-truth data' for algorithm training and to build grower trust.

• At full scale, satellite-enabled insights could address up to 30% of the projected 2050 food gap, reduce global freshwater use by 5-10%, and lower agricultural CO2 emissions by up to 50 million tonnes.
• The market for space-borne agricultural insights is projected to grow at a rate of 9-12% per year from 2022 to 2030, reaching a serviceable market value of between $0.8 billion and $1 billion.
• Yield optimization is expected to be the primary value driver, accounting for over 70% of the value from satellite-based insights in agriculture.
• Satellite imagery costs for high- and very high-resolution data are expected to decline by 25% to 50% by 2030, making them cost-competitive with fixed-wing aircraft and UAVs.
• In the European Union, satellite technology has significantly increased the verification of sustainable agriculture subsidies, moving from a 5% verification rate via manual spot-checks to over 80% via satellite imagery.
• The Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) has used a digital food balance sheet to update yield forecasts five times more frequently, reducing food waste by up to 20%.
• Scaling satellite applications requires overcoming three main hurdles: a lack of cross-industry collaboration, limited accuracy and end-user confidence, and high costs.

APA

World Economic Forum (2023). Space Applications in Agriculture: Enhancing Food and Water Security, Improving Climate Action. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Space_Applications_in_Agriculture_2023.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Space Applications in Agriculture: Enhancing Food and Water Security, Improving Climate Action. 2023. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Space_Applications_in_Agriculture_2023.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Space Applications in Agriculture: Enhancing Food and Water Security, Improving Climate Action |date=April 2023 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Space_Applications_in_Agriculture_2023.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2023space, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Space Applications in Agriculture: Enhancing Food and Water Security, Improving Climate Action}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2023}, month = apr, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Space_Applications_in_Agriculture_2023.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }