SAGRIWATEL - Monitoring the status of the Walloon agriculture with remote sensing

Context and objectives

The Walloon agriculture follows the European evolution. Next to its production activities, the agriculture must today realize a set of new tasks linked to the rural area management and the conservation of the quality of the Environment. The number of farmers is reducing while the size of farms increases, as what is observed through all Europe. Finally, the Belgian agriculture has just been regionalized, giving a complete autonomy and freedom of decision for its agricultural policy. All these changes of the Walloon agriculture need monitoring tools intended for the General Direction of Agriculture of the Region Wallonne Ministry that will allow them to elaborate policies adapted to the agricultural and the rural world, in time and with all the necessary knowledge. This tool must also serve for the analysis of the impact of the agricultural and agri-environmental policies intended by the Walloon Region.

Project outcome

Expected scientific results

The new system provides the decision makers in DGA with a new powerful agriculture state monitoring tool compiling a set of agricultural and agri-environmental applications and enabling them to answer requests, particularly from the European Commission, very quickly. The most interesting applications developed are given in the “Products and service” windows, here after. Some applications will become operational within the shortest delay and are conceived in order to be easily adaptable to new requirements. This constitutes a considerable advantage in view of the frequent CAP evolutions.