Crop monitoring for food security: South and East Mediterranean countries situation at the end of Jul 2006 - Agro-meteorological overview for winter crops
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The present Bulletin is dedicated to the analysis of the agro-meteorological situation in the non-European countries of the Mediterranean basin during the period from the beginning of December 2006 to the end of January 2007. This is a period for the first stages of winter crops development in most countries of the region. Practically in all countries, wheat and barley are the main winter crops. Additionally, sugar beets are cultivated in winter in Israel, as well as potatoes in Morocco. The main part of winter crops is cultivated in rain-fed conditions. In Israel, Libya and Syria about 20-30% of winter cereal crops and in Egypt and Saudi Arabia practically all crops are irrigated. The present Bulletin is devoted to the analysis of the meteorological conditions only for winter wheat.
The monitoring of the agro-meteorological situation is based on the analysis of the following dekadal data: minimal, maximal and average air temperature, sums of precipitation and global radiation, dekadal values of the climatic water balance, dekadal maps of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Indexes (NDVI), dekadal maps of the Dry Matter Production. Meteorological data are derived from the outputs of the numerical meteorological model from ECMWF (UK), and were prepared for analysis by METEOCONSULT (NL). SPOT-VEGETATION data were used as a basis for calculation of the remote sensing indicators of crop growth. Data were preprocessed by VITO (BE). After that, dekadal maximal NDVI values were weighted for pixels within which winter crops are cultivated, and then - were weighted again at country level. Thus, weighted NDVI values were used as an indicator of crop status. Dry Matter Production maps were calculated by VITO based on SPOT-VEGETATION data and information about global radiation, applying the Monteith approach. The Bulletin has the following structure. The first pages contain the main results of the analysis. The following pages are dedicated to the analysis of separate indicators of the crop growth during the period of analysis. The background information is given in the following table (statistical data for the year 2006 is not available yet).
Production and Yield of Wheat in 2005
(FAOSTAT data, last accessed 03.08.2006)
|
country
|
Rice
|
Maize
| ||
|
production, 1000 tons
|
yield, t/ha
|
production, 1000 tons
|
yield,t/ha
| |
| Algeria |
0,3
|
1,5
|
1,0
|
3,3
|
| Egypt |
6200,0
|
9,5
|
6800,0
|
8,1
|
| Israel |
no data
|
no data
|
80,0
|
16,0
|
| Jordan |
no data
|
no data
|
13,1
|
22,7
|
| Lebanon |
no data
|
no data
|
3,4
|
3,6
|
| Libya |
no data
|
no data
|
3,6
|
2,4
|
| Morocco |
16,9
|
7,3
|
224,1
|
0,9
|
| Palestine Auth. |
no data
|
no data
|
no data
|
no data
|
| Saudi Arabia |
no data
|
no data
|
43,7
|
4,0
|
| Syria |
no data
|
no data
|
180,0
|
3,6
|
| Tunisia |
no data
|
no data
|
no data
|
no data |
This is a Bulletin prepared by the MARS-FOOD action, Agriculture & Fisheries Unit, IPSC, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
