Geo data for late blight control in potato : evaluation of decision support service in Bangladesh, 2016‐2017

GEOPOTATO is one of the projects funded within the Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW) facility, which improves food security in developing countries by using satellite data. The Netherlands Space Office (NSO) is executing this programme, commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The GEOPOTATO project develops a decision‐support service (DSS) for farmers in Bangladesh for an optimal control strategy of the late blight disease in potato. Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) is a highly infectious and destructive fungal disease in Solanaceae crops, i.e. among others potatoes and tomatoes. The DSS is provided to farmers through SMS. The objective of the GEOPOTATO project is to reach 100,000 potato farmers with the DSS after three years. The GEOPOTATO project selected the major potato producing region Munshiganj as the region to pilot the service in the season 2016/2017. The introduction was accompanied with field demonstrations on the DSS. In this report, first findings of the introduction of the DSS in Munshiganj are evaluated and described, and compared with results of the baseline study in Munshiganj.