{"id":32383,"date":"2015-03-09T13:44:23","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T23:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=32383"},"modified":"2021-10-14T14:37:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T00:37:37","slug":"uh-hilo-collaborates-on-statewide-agricultural-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2015\/03\/09\/uh-hilo-collaborates-on-statewide-agricultural-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"UH<\/abbr> Hilo collaborates on statewide agricultural survey"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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North Kohala Crop Land Summary from the Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> County Food Self-Sufficiency Baseline Study 2012. HDOA<\/abbr> and UH<\/abbr> Hilo are now surveying all agricultural lands throughout the state.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Department of Agriculture<\/a> (HDOA<\/abbr>) is collaborating with the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo<\/a> on a statewide agricultural survey to provide a digital depiction of the 2015 agricultural footprint of the state. The project will include mapping current agricultural activity statewide, as well as water systems and irrigation options available to farmers and ranchers.<\/p>\n

“The product is intended as a baseline depiction of our current agricultural use and will help to measure progress in the expansion of all agriculture, and particularly local food production, across the state,” says Jeff Melrose, a land planner and longtime agricultural land manager who is serving at HDOA<\/abbr> as project manager of the survey.<\/p>\n

“One of the basic problems this project addresses is that Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> hasn’t had a statewide geographic assessment of agricultural activity since the mid-1980s,” explains principal investigator Ryan Perroy, an assistant professor of geography and environmental sciences<\/a> at Â鶹´«Ã½Hilo.<\/p>\n

The mapping work is being done within the UH<\/abbr> Hilo Spatial Data Analysis and Visualization Laboratory<\/a> (SDAV<\/abbr>), drawing upon the lab staff’s expertise in Geographical Information System (GIS<\/abbr>) software and analysis of remotely sensed data, including Google Earth, to help in digitizing active crop and ranching areas.<\/p>\n

Sylvie Cares of the SDAV<\/abbr> lab is GIS<\/abbr> technician and cartographer on the project.<\/p>\n

Digital mapping software is being used in the field to collect aerial and satellite imagery. Crops are being identified in 12 to 15 different categories from tropical fruit and forestry to coffee, papaya, seed production and sugar. The process also involves the use of county real property and agricultural water data to help identify smaller farm operations that may not appear clearly in aerial imagery.<\/p>\n

Input from industry leaders, landowners, farmers and other stakeholders also will be incorporated into the survey.<\/p>\n

“It will serve as a foundational document in future agricultural planning efforts and help to inform decision makers and the general public about what kind of farming is happening statewide and what key factors support its ongoing activity,” Melrose explains.<\/p>\n

“The baseline data this project will generate should be incredibly useful for decision makers and farmers as we all consider how to move Hawaiian agriculture forward,” says Perroy.<\/p>\n

Read the entire article on the UH<\/abbr> Hilo Stories website<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n

—By Susan Enright<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Statewide agricultural survey to provide a digital depiction of the 2015 agricultural footprint of the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[222,38,651,14],"class_list":["post-32383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-agriculture","tag-geography","tag-spatial-data-analysis-and-visualization-laboratory","tag-uh-hilo","entry","no-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t