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OBJECTIVES 
1. To develop a value added product 
which would be commercially viable 
in the global agriculture sector. 
2. To develop a weekly product which 
can be used in global change 
monitoring in each hemisphere. This 
product must be quantitative and not 
qualitative. 
METHOD OF PROVIDING DATA 
The first important step in 
monitoring for change is the 
production of a cloud free image. 
In 1986, Manitoba Remote Sensing 
Centre received a contract from the 
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing to 
build the Canada Crop Information 
System. DIPIX Technologies 
developed the system. This system 
enabled daily NOAA AVHRR imagery to 
be composited and pieced together 
(mosaiced) into a single cloud free 
image to cover the whole Northern 
Hemisphere. The maximum value for 
each pixel was also preserved for 
the week. The GVI (Global 
Vegetation Index) for the Northern 
Hemisphere was purchased from NESDIC 
(NASA). Figure 2 shows the flow 
diagram of this process. 
The second step was the realization 
that satellite imagery must be 
absolutely calibrated to monitor 
change. We must be able to produce 
more than an index. What we really 
need crop information in kg ha" , 
but we had to satisfied with percent 
of a known value. The Saskatchewan 
Research Council developed the 
results through a contract from the 
Canada Saskatchewan Crop Insurance 
Corporation. 
Calibration must be made for 
different satellites even in the 
same series, haze, and off-nadir 
stretch. All of these difficulties 
have been overcome in this scheme. 
But acceptance of the results would 
not be complete without a way to 
produce crop information in real 
values. This is difficult without 
knowing the crop planted. We found 
that by dividing this week's GVI by 
last year's maximum GVI gave us a 
percent yield map. The resulting 
image is actually a percent of last 
year's yield. 
Polaroid colour prints of theme GVI 
AVHRR imagery were produced from the 
computer enhancements to define 
visually the boundaries of the areas 
affected. Colour prints were made 
with eight classes: 0 - 40%, 41 - 
50%, 51 - 60%, 61 - 70%, 71 - 80%, 
81 - 90%, 91 - 100%, 101 - 255% 
greater than 1987 for the chosen 
dates in 1988 and 1989 to 1988. 
SRC and MRSC decided to sell this 
product by subscription. Based 
upon costs of production at both SRC 
and MRSC, the subscription cost was 
determined. Our market survey 
predicted that we needed 670 clients 
to start. We started with a mailing 
list of: 
Canada 
Banks (head offices) 114 
Commodity brokers 185 
Grain brokers 37 
Grain handlers 135 
Grain dealers 238 
USA 
Commodity brokers 2653 
Grain brokers 301 
Grain dealers (market sample 
of 3500) 422 
PROBLEMS 
Country outline received from 
CCRS/CIA/World Data Bank is missing 
some countries and is partially 
incorrect. This outline should be 
corrected before trying to get 
customers in those countries without 
boundaries. For the production run 
where there is mis-registration, 
these boundaries will be blacked out 
in the overlay. 
RESULTS 
The 1988 comparison to 1987 showed 
an extensive zone of drought 
extending from the southwest towards 
the northeast in the test area of 
Saskatchewan (Figure 3) . This area 
continued southwestward into the 
Mid-west U.S.A. 
Analysis of the NOAA data compared 
to the ground data was done using 
ratios of 1985 to 1987 and 1986 to 
1987 and 1988 to 1987 for 
Saskatchewan (Whiting et al 1989). 
For 1988, the NOAA analysis for crop 
and forge yield estimate showed that 
Saskatchewan averaged 57% less than 
normal for forage and 45% for crop 
yield (Table 1). 
Delineation of drought boundaries 
for weekly 1989 using the GVI data 
were obtained by digital analysis. 
Table 2 shows the analysis by sub