The Monitoring Agricultural ResourceS (MARS) Unit Mission

We provide scientific and technical support on EU Agriculture and Food Security policies.

- In Europe, the Unit addresses key issues related to the management and control of the Common Agriculture Policy: Independent crop yield forecasts, agricultural insurances, standard control methods of area based subsidies, compliance with environment, and effect of climate change. It supports EU projects related to Land Administration, the enlargement process, and the GMES Space Component.

- In developing countries, assistance is given to the EU Food Security Thematic Program with special emphasis on Africa, and to providing building blocks for an European capacity for Global Agriculture Monitoring.
The activities of the Unit are based on expertise in agro- meteorological crop modelling, sampling methods, econometric, geomatics (GIS, GPS and ICT), and satellite & airborne remote-sensing (the Unit manages the EC Framework Contracts for the provision of Satellite Remote Sensing data and manages the access/dissemination of EU image data archives).
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