Case Study
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) is a government organization that aims to drive innovation and ingenuity in Canada's agriculture and food industries.
The Canadian agricultural industry is facing unique agronomic, economic, and environmental challenges due to extreme weather conditions, new invasive species, and increasing global competition. Additionally, consumers are demanding higher-quality food, more variety, and convenience. Agricultural organizations in Canada are looking for novel products and processes to meet the demands of new markets while also ensuring that their operations are competitive and sustainable. AAFC is looking to generate useful insights for producers using its wealth of data on crop density, soil moisture, farm locations, and other agri-environmental indicators.
AAFC is tapping into the capabilities of ArcGIS Online to help producers make decisions. The organization launched UMAP, a self-service, cloud-based portal for AAFC staff. Users can combine data such as annual crop inventories, historic crop yield, and production statistics, with interoperable data from other organizations and third parties such as Esri. They can then use the data to create web maps and apps and share with a wider audience that will benefit from these resources.
Organization/User
AAFC
Challenge
AAFC sought to meet the demands of consumers while ensuring sustainability and competitiveness by making a wealth of data available to the agriculture industry.
Solution
The organization launched UMAP, a self-service, cloud-based portal using ArcGIS Online.
Results
AAFC can help agricultural producers better understand crop patterns and make decisions that are economically and environmentally viable.
The UMAP portal has transformed AAFC's datasets into ready-to-use web resources that serve as powerful tools to communicate complex information in a simple way. It has significantly cut confusion about where to access organizational maps and reduced the number of help desk requests.
For example, the Annual Crop Inventory app allows users to quickly visualize and analyze crop patterns to see an overview of what has been planted on farmland across Canada. The Spatial Density of Major Crops app helps researchers and the public analyze the density of the country's crops. The Land Use app enables users to analyze changes in land use across Canada from 1990 through 2010. If a producer is looking to rent, the Land Use app can show which crops have been planted in previous years. That way, the producer can make the most effective and environmentally conscientious decision about which land to farm and what to cultivate on it.
To learn more and sign up for a free trial, visit ArcGIS Online.
Maps help us visualize the information we collect and create. Imagine how a farmer or policy maker could benefit from simple web-based access to open datasets on changes in land use, such as crop rotations or the environmental impacts of droughts.