Tony Kim, Timothy Mayer, and Aparna Phalke (ST11) traveled to Thimphu, Bhutan, to represent the SERVIR SCO at the official launch on 5/18/23, of the Agricultural Classification and Estimation Service (ACES) geospatial application with the Bhutan Department of Agriculture (DoA), Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. Also in attendance were the Honorable Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Dasho Thinley Namgyel, the Director of Agriculture, Mr. Yonten Gyamtsho, and representatives from the US Department of State and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Kim gave a speech on STEM activities in Bhutan and Phalke provided a demonstration of the ACES service followed by high tea discussion on other relevant services for Bhutan. The ACES application, co-developed by SERVIR and Bhutan’s DoA, was developed to map small holder rice farms in Bhutan (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1137835/full ). This activity is part of a NASA Interagency Agreement with the US Department of State – Advancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math in Bhutan through Increased Earth Observation Capacity – a collaboration that also includes NASA’s DEVELOP, ARSET, and GLOBE programs.
Following the launch, Kim, Mayer, and Phalke provided a five-day Training of Trainers (ToT) 5/22- 5/26/23, in collaboration with the Bhutan Ecological Society. Participants from the Bhutan Department of Agriculture (DoA), Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, National Bureau of Statistics, Royal Thimphu College, and other partners learned how to leverage the ACES platform to identify and map smallholder rice farms in Bhutan. In this training, Phase II of the agricultural monitoring service in Bhutan was kicked off. Phalke carried out the stakeholder consultation for Phase II and planned the next steps with partners. Phase II of the service will focus on co-developing improved rice area maps and building rice yield models using satellite dataset and advanced methodologies. The SCO team along with the partners also visited rice farms, collected crop type samples across Paro valley and interviewed farmers for their next phase work. The training was undertaken in alignment with the NASA Interagency Agreement with the US Department of State -- Advancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math in Bhutan through Increased Earth Observation Capacity.
Also following the launch, an in-person outreach event was conducted at the Royal Thimphu College on 5/19/23. Over 100 students participated in the outreach event, which focused on NASA milestones and how to leverage Earth observations to address immediate environmental issues in Bhutan.
