The GeoAI Food Security Platform, led by ICRISAT under SERVIR West Africa, is a data-driven early warning system that helps governments, technical partners and other end users act earlier on food insecurity. It is built on a governed geospatial data fabric that combines Earth observation, climate, soil and socioeconomic data, and it delivers four services: crop condition monitoring, drought monitoring, ensemble-based yield forecasting using a Temporal Fusion Transformer model, and automated dekadal (10-day) bulletins. The design is global, but the work is local and shaped by what end users ask for. Pilot areas cover the Sahel and humid zones of West Africa (Senegal’s Groundnut Basin, Ségou in Mali and Northern Ghana) and the East African highlands (West Gojam and West Arsi in Ethiopia, and North Rift in Kenya). It is being developed with national partners CSE (Senegal) and CERSGIS (Ghana). The project runs for 2.5 years.


Project Start Date : 2026-06-01

Project End Date : 2028-05-31

Donor : Allen Institute through Spatial Informatics Group - Natural Assets Laboratory (SIG-NAL)

It aims to strengthen evidence on cocoa and coffee production systems in Togo, Benin, Guinea and Liberia. The work covers stakeholder consultations and needs assessment, collection of secondary and primary field data (including farm polygon mapping), and capacity building for national teams using FAO’s Open Foris Ground tool. Together, these will produce a harmonized regional database and an analysis of cross-border effects to support deforestation-free commodity value chains and sound policy decisions.


Project Start Date : 2026-05-13

Project End Date : 2027-05-13

Donor : Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)

Harvesting the Rain: The Adoption of RWH Techniques at Scale in the Sahel (Dutch Research Council (NWO) - NL-CGIAR)


Project Start Date : 2026-05-01

Project End Date : 2029-04-30

Donor : Dutch Research Council (NWO) - NL-CGIAR

West Africa data collection and cross border effect analysis on cocoa and coffee under AIM4 Commodities.


Project Start Date : 2026-05-01

Project End Date : 2028-12-31

Donor : FAO

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) techniques can restore degraded soils and raise yields, but fewer than 10% of farmers in Niger use them on their own land. The project builds on a decade of research in Niger, including a randomized controlled trial (RCT), which showed that a short training substantially increased adoption, improved soil quality and raised production and income. The consortium includes Wageningen University, ICRISAT, the University of Diffa, Niger’s Ministry of Hydraulics, Sanitation and Environment, and Sahel Consulting Group. Together they will identify barriers to adoption in new areas, co-design interventions with communities, and test and scale them through RCTs in Niger, Mali and Nigeria. ICRISAT’s part, under the Resilient Farming Systems program and led by Dr Kidia Gelaye with Dr Bouba Traore, covers fieldwork, setting up pilots in Mali and Nigeria, and Earth Observation and remote-sensing data analysis.


Project Start Date : 2026-05-01

Project End Date : 2029-03-02

Donor : Dutch Research Council (NWO) through Wagenigen University and Research (WUR), The Netherlands

In-season crop monitoring using Machine learning Algorithms and Geospatial Technology


Project Start Date : 2025-05-01

Project End Date : 2028-12-31

Donor : ORSAC, Odisha