Tuscaloosa, Alabama: NASA and the Department of Agriculture signed an agreement on Saturday to cooperate on Earth observation and geospatial analytics to improve the data available to American farmers.
The Memorandum of Understanding is the second the space agency has signed this month to boost collaboration among government agencies.
Signed on the Inspiration Tour
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins signed the MoU at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa — the latest stop on NASA’s Inspiration Tour.
“By combining NASA’s Earth-observation data and technical expertise with USDA’s knowledge of American agriculture, we can improve the information available to farmers and ranchers, strengthen our understanding of crop conditions and natural hazards, and pursue new high-risk, high-reward ideas that advance both science and American competitiveness,” Isaacman said in a statement.
Areas of Cooperation
The agreement will deepen the agencies’ existing partnership in multiple areas, including:
- Working together on remote sensing science
- Improving geospatial data integration
- Ensuring NASA work aligns with agriculture needs
- Better monitoring of everything from crops to droughts to natural disasters
“American farmers are the best in the world and deserve any solution we can leverage, even when it is out of this world,” Rollins said in a statement.
A Pattern of Inter-Agency Agreements
The latest MoU closely follows a memo NASA signed with the Department of Energy on October 8. That agreement will accelerate cooperation between the two agencies on space nuclear power and propulsion, including working together to design, build, test and deploy nuclear systems and fuel for operations in orbit.
