Google and Microsoft Back NASA Scientist’s Food Crisis Hotline

Right after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, crop scientist Inbal Becker-Reshef got a letter from officials in Kyiv. They wanted to figure out how much wheat and other grains were lost to Vladimir Putin’s occupying forces.

Work began on tracking and mapping lost crop production using satellites and remote sensing. It’s one of many assignments Becker-Reshef and her team of more than 20 scientists have been tasked with since founding an arm of US space agency NASA that
monitors agriculture around the world.

Now, with a total of $7.7 million in early-stage funding and after another summer of weather shocks, the academic is starting ...