Corné van der Sande
Corné van der Sande has 25 years of experience in earth observation, specializing in using agricultural monitoring as an instrument for compliance monitoring, anomaly detection and variable rate application.
Sessie
Agriculture is under pressure from water scarcity and climate change, demanding urgent transformation. Earthexplorer specializes in capacity building for governments and companies to establish sovereign data platforms for monitoring agriculture and water practices with remote sensing using open algorithms and integration with in situ farm data. It empowers local entities to deploy and manage their own monitoring infrastructure. In West Africa and MENA, the platform addresses critical data gaps where governments lack systems to integrate satellite and field data for quality crop mapping and water balance analysis. Local installation overcomes political sensitivities around water use by giving authorities full control. In Europe, it builds technical capacity at Government Paying Agencies, strengthening algorithm validation for CAP compliance monitoring. The platform standardizes field data collection, enabling algorithm developers to collect training data, establish feedback loops, and validate AI results. For agricultural businesses, it delivers high-quality, practical monitoring algorithms that align with real-world farm practices. The platform enables leveraging the EU’s Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem while maintaining sovereignty. The commercial open source software model, with subscriptions for installation, training, and updates, has been validated by EU experts as effective for stimulating adoption.