Mapping Cropland Abandonment Across
the Conflict-Affected Sahel
in collaboration with
Join our Ask Me Anything Webinar on 25 November at 16:00 CET to ask all your questions about the ESA Φ-Lab Grand Marathon.
GENERAL CONTEXT
Conflict and insecurity are reshaping agricultural landscapes across the Sahel, forcing farmers to abandon fields and disrupting rainfed food production. From Mali to Sudan, areas that once supported seasonal crops can become inaccessible or remain uncultivated as violence, displacement, and insecurity intensify. Yet these changes are often difficult to detect and understand at scale: cropland abandonment can be gradual, spatially fragmented, and closely intertwined with seasonal rainfall variability, making it challenging to distinguish the effects of conflict from those of climate and other environmental drivers.
Earth Observation (EO) offers a unique opportunity to monitor these dynamics across vast and difficult-to-access areas, combining satellite imagery, environmental data, and information on conflict and human mobility. This challenge invites innovators to develop next-generation EO approaches to detect, map, and understand rainfed cropland abandonment in conflict-affected regions, with a particular focus on the Sahelian belt from Mali towards Sudan. The aim is to turn satellite observations into actionable insights that can support food-security monitoring, humanitarian response, and the resilience and recovery of vulnerable agricultural communities.
WHO IS THE GRAND MARATHON FOR?
Any startup, company, agency, NGO that is developing Earth Observation solutions to detect, map and understand the abandonment of rainfed croplands in conflict-affected regions. The focus is on the Sahelian belt and neighbouring regions, from Mali to Sudan. We particularly welcome projects that support food security and the resilience and recovery of vulnerable agricultural communities. Any stage of product development, from research to commercialisation, is eligible for the Marathon.
IDEAL SOULTIONS ARE:
- Focused on rainfed croplands, able to detect and characterise gradual, fragmented abandonment, and to tell conflict-driven abandonment apart from changes driven by rainfall variability, drought, floods and other climate factors
- Built on novel or alternative EO and AI approaches (new sensors, new data sources, new methods) that combine satellite observations with environmental data and information on conflict and human mobility, to deliver trusted, season-by-season insights for food-security programmes, humanitarian agencies and NGOs
- Showing a clear potential for business & real-life applications
ELIGIBILITY:
- Applicants must be from an ESA member state (including Associate/Cooperating Members per current ESA rules)
- Open to research projects, companies of all types (from early-stage startups to established companies), agencies, NGO, and other forms of institutions
WHAT WILL YOU BENEFIT FROM?
SUBSTANTIAL PRIZE POOL
1st Runner – up to€120K
2nd Runner – up to €45K
3rd Runner – up to €15K
GLOBAL EXPOSURE
Pitch your solution to an international audience on the stage during the Hello Tomorrow Summit in Amsterdam (2–3 June 2027)
INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE
Gain prestige and recognition by presenting at two upcoming official ESA Events
EXPERT COACHING
Receive exclusive coaching from Hello Tomorrow’s experts and refine your pitch
UNPARALLELED NETWORKING
Engage directly with ESA Φ-lab’s leading network of Earth Observation experts
ARE YOU DEVELOPING SOLUTIONS LINKED TO THE FOLLOWING TOPICS?
OBSERVE & MAP
(RAINFED FIELDS)
Technologies finding rainfed fields and tracking
whether they are sown, season after season
EXPLAIN
(Climate-driven abandonment)
Solutions predicting what a season should look like for each rainfed field, spotting dry-spell stress or flood damage.
EXPLAIN
(Conflict-driven abandonment)
Solutions flagging rainfed fields left empty, evidencing insecurity or displacement signals (burned fields, emptied villages, cut-off roads…) or attributing change to its most likely cause.
INFORM
(DECISION SUPPORT)
Technologies turning attribution into trusted, seasonal information for food-security, humanitarian & recovery decisions
TIMELINE
The Grand Marathon is structured as a progressive competition with cumulable prizes, beginning on October 22nd (Km 0) and lasting until June 12th (Km 42). Each milestone marks a new stage of the challenge, just like checkpoints in a marathon.
APPLY BY 15 JANUARY
WHAT IS ESA Φ-LAB?
- ESA Φ-lab accelerates the future of Earth Observation (EO) through disruptive innovations & commercialisation actions by managing the full innovation cycle, from nurturing blue-sky concepts to delivering tangible impact across commercial, scientific, and NGO communities.
- By offering financial, technical, and business support, Φ-lab helps to bridge the gap between innovative ideas and the market by helping to scale up the commercialisation potential of projects.
Join the Grand Marathon: Mapping Cropland Abandonment Across the Conflict-Affected Sahel
Dive into our brochure for all the information you need
The 3 selected runners will be required to produce deliverables at every milestone:
Km 0-10: Application
Applicants submit a concise, 5–page idea proposal including a Lean Business Plan.
Km 10-30: First Deliverable
The 3 selected runners will create a detailed, 25-page proposal of the concept including a comprehensive business plan.
Km 30-40: Second Deliverable
The 3 runners further develop the proposed concepts using Earth Observation test data & develop a first MVP.
Km 40-42: Final Deliverable
The Grand Winner will develop and showcase a high-fidelity version of the full solution, demonstrating real-case scenarios.
The Grand Winner will be announced at the Hello Tomorrow Summit in Amsterdam.
Contact our Project Coordinator, Federico Mentoni (federico.mentoni@hello-tomorrow.org) for any questions.