Imagery in Agriculture
A weekly semi-realistic thesis of tomfoolery regarding Earth Observation in Agriculture.
February 16th - 1st Edition of my Imagery in Ag weekly series
Visit my website www.easyobservations.com for more info about how we can work together.
Opening thoughts for the week
Well here goes nothing! If you’re are reading this “Congratulations!” you are embarking on a wild ride into weekly shenanigans made by yours truly regarding Earth Observation solutions (Imagery related basically) in Agriculture. Going forward the goal is to bridge concepts, ideas, news, opinions, issues, and more with Ag and EO in mind. They are an odd but powerful pair to say the least.
For this main first newsletter I won’t dive into the weeds quite yet, but I promise I will in the 2nd edition next week. To start, below is a general outline of what I plan to cover and how I plan to showcase it. Think of this as a preseason game, just warming up the crowd while getting my writing mind back into it again.
Overall though, I hope to guide some semblance of logic, guidance, and learnings regarding Ag and EO. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride with me while enjoying some week one fun memes to get you going.
News and Opinions
Press Releases - While I could showcase many of the random press releases that consistently come out (I will to an extent), the main goal is to dive a little into each one and how they could affect Ag or vise versa in EO with my own thoughts and experiences. Not too technical, but more of a “Hey, what the heck does this actually mean?”
Deals made - Certain deals, investments, acquisitions, etc...are clearly ripe for opinion and further understanding and I naturally will go into this with much fan fare hopefully. While these do come from press releases usually, they don’t get into the reality behind it as much. Like, “Why was this actually done and what will it mean?” It’s likely I’ll jump back in time a little at first as well for a catchup.
Upcoming commentary (I won’t cover all these at the same time but over the next few weeks)
Planet buying Vandersat
Planet and Sinergies partnership
EarthDaily Analytics changes and updates
EOS and Firefly Aerospace
Sentinel 1B issues
Wyvern Space raises and deals
Agroscout buys Terravion assets
Tokyo Marine investment in ICEYE
Scanworld and ConsteLLR partnership
Planet and Leaf collaboration
Some Aerial/Drone/UAV stuff too I guess (this one is a little more complex)
Silly Imagery
Memes - How can you not put some funny memes up about these industries? Unfortunately, there isn’t enough of it. I will do my best to add my own outtakes on this, but I mainly implore you the readers to submit your own takes as well.
Jokes - Simpler jokes will be featured and welcome as well from the audience. I think one of the most important things people can do regarding their daily lives and jobs are to make fun of it. Since in all reality nothing is perfect and there is plenty of BS to make fun of. Please throw me some good ideas from yourself here as well and I’ll make sure to spread them out either via here, Twitter, or Linkedln.
Joke of the week: “What kind of maps do spiders make?” Web-based maps... Yup, that happened.
Quick takes
Hype gone wild - I think we’ve all seen this before. The newest and greatest thing just came out and will revolutionize the industry somehow. Well, I’m going to call that crap out for what it is. Now, I’ll try and be as nice as I can be, but there are some main areas that are ripe for this especially lately. Some example areas below that I will talk about greatly.
Carbon Credits
Sustainability
Automated field boundary creation
Crop Type classification
Yield prediction
Daily imagery
Change Detection
Automated Fertility loss
AI/ML something something
I like it - There are also plenty of great new things that have came or are coming out in Ag and EO. It can be hard find at times due to different geographies and niches within each industry, but they do exist. Some are actually the same as the hyped ones as well. Most of the above items do have some hope so I’ll try to clear the air somewhat. Some things to mention...
SAR becoming a bigger thing
Hyperspectral becoming more real and scalable
Cheaper High resolution data
Easier access to buying data through marketplaces
Daily imagery - Defining “daily” better
Automated field boundary creation (some are better than others)
Good AI/ML something something
Super Resolution
Did you know?
Gossip - This will be a fun one for sure. Through my contacts and talks with others I definitely hear things and sometimes it needs to be said, be it confidentially in some fashion. I do plan on being professional with “gossip” as I’ve been on the back side of it as well. Overall though, some things need to be known.
Old stories - Just as with gossip, there are some old war stories that also need to be told. From unknown positive things from people to processes to issues and bad decisions that were never known by most. I also want to create a series of stories from some veterans in the industry so your comments will be welcome and I want to tell your side of the story.
Fun facts - This one is always fun for me mainly because I’m full of useless knowledge according to my friends. I always like to find and talk about interesting things about certain processes that most don’t know about. There is no shortage of them in the Ag and Space industry so I’ll do my best, but also please share your fun facts as well.
The Future
What is junk - As always, there are a plethora of things coming down the pipeline that groups like to talk about. It’s not that we know it will be crap or not but you can make some good guesses pretty quick if you know what you are talking about. I’ll be as gentle as I can with this, but my hype section will also likely add to both these areas.
What has potential - As with crap, good can come from dreaming of the future and coming up with new interesting concepts. Some of these might turn to junk or vise versa. All in all, I want to highlight to each industry things that they should pay attention too more clearly as to not be blindsided.
Other
So this is the first edition, be prepared for changes and new ideas to pop up. While I want to be consistent, I’m very open especially at first to edit what you see above. Please be patient with my wildness.
Closing thoughts for the week
What can I say...this is an experiment for me, but one in which I know I’ll continue to push regardless as I enjoy Agriculture and Earth Observation more than most. When I’ve experienced success in writing articles around this before it was exhilarating and from what I’ve been told very helpful and insightful to my readers and cohorts.
While I know it won’t be great or perfect all the time, I feel very deeply that someone needs to talk more about these industries and how they impact each other. There are so many projects and solutions that seem to be dependent on Ag and EO to work together, especially around climate science and agronomy. In my opinion, it’s a general mess right now and really has always been. This is why I’m doing this.
My hope in this newsletter is to broaden the understanding and reality in how EO and Ag can work together better while also calling out what likely won’t. I also will dive into other issues regarding tech in Ag in general and other perceived illusions that persist in both industries that drive EO and Ag toward bad paths. Nothing is perfect, and any industry connected to Ag usually finds out in some ugly ways.
So, let’s see where this all goes and hopefully you’ll enjoy it and come along for the ride.
All the best!
This will be a great spot for info. Nice new beginning Nathan!
Hahaha I love it!
Having worked in AI/ML for over 8 years including several years in precision ag, it is really an untapped resource within precision ag and analytics companies. I am excited to hear what your going to talk about!