Nearly 350 million people worldwide experience severe food shortages due to global conflict, climate change, and rising costs. This project develops a geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) capability to identify early signals of instability in crop production using satellite imagery.

The project is a collaboration between Nathan Jacobs (WashU), Hannah Kerner and Ana M. Tárano (Arizona State University), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Harvest/University of Maryland, and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). The team will test its open-source tool in areas of active conflict, including Sudan, Ukraine, Syria, and Haiti, with the goal of building a model applicable to any conflict region.

Recipients of the Geospatial Innovation for Food Security (GIFS) award also participate in an 18-month program to advance the work from proof-of-concept to operational deployment.