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over 7 years ago

A note from the USDA's CIO for Policy & Planning

Dear agro-innovators,

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is excited to be partnering with Microsoft for this Innovation Challenge to address the future of food. As you're already aware, this competition is designed to explore how climate change will impact the U.S. food system so we can achieve better long-term food resiliency. We encourage you to develop and publish new applications and tools that have the ability to analyze the agricultural data sets we’ve made available on the Azure-hosted Farm Data Dashboard.

For over a hundred years, the USDA has compiled data from economic reports and farm production surveys, and more recently from satellite imagery and remote sensors, that provides information on the health of crops around the country. Through our partnership with Microsoft, we are now putting that data into your hands in the hopes that you will help us derive fresh insights. These insights are what will enable us to address the factors currently threatening our ability to feed a growing global population.

We believe this competition offers very exciting opportunities for environmental, economic, and agricultural innovation, and we look forward to seeing the new tools you’ll create.

Best of luck for a successful outcome!

Joyce M. Hunter

Deputy CIO, Policy and Planning

USDA