CropSense AI Selected for AESPP Business Innovation Programme to Advance Agricultural Intelligence in Africa
CropSense AI has been selected for the Africa–EU Space Partnership Programme (AESPP) Business Innovation Programme, marking an important step in our work to turn satellite, climate and agricultural data into practical intelligence for African agriculture.
AESPP is funded by the European Union under its Global Gateway strategy, with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the African Space Agency (AfSA) implementing its Continental Innovation activities. Through innovation funding, mentoring and access to the African and European Earth Observation ecosystem, the programme will support the next phase of CropSense’s development.
Turning Satellite Data into Better Agricultural Decisions
Across Africa, farmers and the institutions serving them face a shared challenge: reliable information about conditions on individual farms can be difficult and expensive to obtain.
For farmers, this can limit access to timely advice on crop health and climate risks. For lenders, insurers and agricultural organisations, it can make assessing productive capacity, monitoring farms and responding to emerging risks more challenging.
CropSense combines Earth Observation—the use of satellites to monitor conditions on the ground—with climate data, agricultural knowledge and locally grounded AI to help address these information gaps.
Our focus is on making this intelligence useful for the decisions that matter: supporting crop production, assessing agricultural risk and improving access to appropriate financial services.
What the Programme Will Help Us Advance
Our participation in AESPP will support two connected priorities.
Strengthening crop monitoring and advisory capabilities
We aim to strengthen how CropSense translates satellite and climate observations into useful information about crop conditions and emerging production risks.
This includes improving the reliability and relevance of farm monitoring and the insights that inform agricultural advisory services. Our goal is to help farmers and the organisations supporting them recognise potential problems earlier and make better-informed decisions throughout the growing season.
Advancing YieldRank for agricultural finance
YieldRank is CropSense’s agricultural credit intelligence solution. It combines satellite, climate and agricultural data to provide additional evidence on farm productive capacity and agricultural risk.
For banks, microfinance institutions and other agricultural lenders, this intelligence is designed to complement existing underwriting processes, particularly when assessing farmers whose repayment prospects are closely linked to crop production and whose formal financial records may be limited.
Through the programme, we aim to strengthen YieldRank’s methodology, advance validation with institutional users and improve how its insights support lending workflows.
The longer-term goal is to help institutions assess agricultural borrowers more efficiently and serve farmers with a clearer understanding of production conditions and risks.
Building the Next Chapter
Selection for AESPP creates an opportunity to develop our technology alongside a wider community of African and European Earth Observation businesses, experts and potential collaborators.
We are grateful to the programme team and supporting institutions, and to everyone contributing to CropSense’s development.
Our ambition remains clear: to make locally relevant agricultural intelligence more accessible and useful for the people and institutions shaping Africa’s food systems.
Interested in exploring CropSense for agricultural lending, crop monitoring or farmer support? Contact us at hello@cropsenseai.com to discuss a demonstration, pilot or collaboration.
