The report presented here is more than a routine issue of CropWatch’s global agricultural monitoring bulletin. It also bears witness to the major milestones in CropWatch’s development.

The first CropWatch agricultural monitoring report was conceived in 1998, when scientific assessment was needed to understand the impact of a major nationwide flood disaster on food production. In November 2013, CropWatch officially released its first bilingual Chinese–English bulletin to a global audience, and has continued to publish it ever since. From timely assessments of disaster impacts to the provision of agricultural information worldwide, the CropWatch Bulletin has accompanied the global agricultural monitoring community through nearly three decades of successive revisions and innovations. Times have changed, but CropWatch’s original commitment has remained constant. The team has continued to build on remote-sensing and ground-observation data, address monitoring challenges through methodological innovation, integrate data, algorithms, platforms and applications, strengthen operational capacity through long-term practice, and upgrade the system through technological advances. In doing so, CropWatch has moved from catching up technologically to leading through innovation, while ensuring that advanced Earth observation capabilities serve the needs of agricultural monitoring users. Looking back, we have worked globally, focused on major crop-producing regions, and closely followed key producing and exporting countries. We have examined agro-meteorological conditions and crop production, capturing subtle shifts in food production amid complex and changing circumstances, and providing timely, objective and transparent information to support global food security.

On 16 October 2026, at the global World Food Day celebration held at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy, the Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (AIRCAS), received the 2026 FAO Achievement Award for its Global Agricultural Remote Sensing Monitoring Platform (CropWatch). The Achievement Award recognizes the outstanding performance of individuals or institutions that have created true impact in the efficient execution of programmes related to FAO's work. The CropWatch Cloud platform has been recognized for transforming complex satellite-based crop monitoring into an accessible, open cloud service, enabling 32 countries particularly in the Global South to independently monitor crops and make evidence-based decisions. This honour recognizes not only CropWatch’s sustained innovation, operational service and practical model for global capacity-building, but also the CropWatch team at AIRCAS for its commitment to food security, dedication and open sharing, and its sustained focus on research that responds to real-world needs.

Looking ahead, with the continued support of all sectors of society, CropWatch will continue to advance agricultural monitoring methods and improve its global agricultural remote-sensing monitoring platform. It will foster a more open, inclusive and widely participatory agricultural monitoring ecosystem: providing agricultural researchers with a platform for algorithm development and validation; giving users timely and reliable agricultural information; and supporting institutions in building autonomous monitoring systems tailored to local needs. By making advanced remote-sensing technologies more widely accessible and breaking down geographical and technical barriers, CropWatch aims to enable stakeholders to assess food production independently and make their own informed judgements. It will continue to improve the transparency, timeliness and accessibility of global agricultural monitoring information, contributing lasting support to global food security and sustainable agricultural development.

Bingfang Wu

CropWatch Team

October 31, 2026