The Kenya Space Agency (KSA) Director General, Maj Gen Hillary Kipkosgey, joined stakeholders in Nairobi for the WorldCereal System Training Workshop, conducted at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Westlands on November 5 to 6 2026.
The workshop convened by KSA and organized in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and the WorldCereal Consortium, focuses on the utilization of the WorldCereal processing architecture for crop mapping.
The WorldCereal system is an open-source, flexible, and scalable platform that enables users to generate customized crop maps that can be tailored to specific geographic regions, growing seasons, and crop types. It leverages public and private reference data, freely available high-resolution Earth Observation (EO) satellite imagery, meteorological time-series data, and advanced machine learning algorithms.
The two-day hands-on training aims to equip participants with the technical skills to integrate the cloud-based platform into their daily toolsets for local and global crop monitoring. It will also build the capacity required to utilize the WorldCereal platform deployed at the newly launched Earth Observation Innovation Laboratory at the Taita Taveta University. In his remarks, the DG noted that Agriculture remains a critical pillar of Kenya’s economy, supporting livelihoods, providing employment, and contributing to national food security. However, the sector continues to face challenges associated with climate variability, recurrent droughts and floods, changing land-use patterns, and the growing need for reliable agricultural statistics to inform planning and decision-making.
This workshop presents a strategic opportunity to strengthen local technical and institutional capacity, promote national ownership, and integrate advanced agricultural monitoring capabilities into existing geospatial data infrastructures and operational workflows.
These efforts aim to enhance the use of Earth Observation technologies in creating opportunities and addressing the challenges facing Kenya’s agricultural sector