Request for Proposal: Development of a Crop Monitoring System Using Remote Sensing and Field Data Mapping

Request for Proposals: Development of a crop monitoring system using remote sensing and field data mapping

Applications Deadline: 12th September 2025

Location: Global

Start Date: 1st October 2025

End Date: 30th March 2026

Description

Better Cotton is the world’s largest cotton sustainability programme. Our mission: to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment. In challenging times, we are meeting the challenge head on. Through our network of field-level partners we have trained over 2.8 million farmers in 22 countries in more sustainable farming practices. A quarter of the world’s cotton is now grown under the Better Cotton Standard, and our membership network includes more than 2,400 members.

Background

This work is part of a larger ISEAL funded project focusing on the Geospatial Information Technology for Outcome Verification (GIT4OV) as a means to pave the way for improved smallholder livelihoods. This work focuses on the integration of remote sensing and GIS technology to improve cotton farmers efficiency, productivity and sustainability by developing the algorithms for crop detection, crop monitoring and soil health monitoring. Geospatial Information Technology (GIT) combines the principles of geography with advanced technology to collect, analyse and manage geographical data. The key components of GIT are geographic information system (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), Global positioning system (GPS) and geospatial data. GIT is being used in various fields including agriculture and natural resource management. GIT is agriculture supports precision farming, crop monitoring, crop advisory and soil analysis for better natural resource management and conservation. Remote Sensing is a modern-day requirement for agriculture and management practices. Remote sensing has its key implications in crop monitoring, precision agriculture, crop production/yield prediction, soil analysis and weather monitoring for informed decision making for the farmers regarding crop health, site specific fertiliser application, crop rotation and soil management, better planning for yield and market decisions and particularly about tracking weather patterns and predicting natural disasters allowing farmers to practice prevention and mitigation.

Better Cotton has conducted a detailed matrix review of remote sensing technologies in agriculture and GIS approaches that are being used in agriculture globally and have also documented the best practices and case studies from use of remote sensing and GIS applications in agriculture. The matrix review report recommended a hybrid approach for the Better Cotton that can integrate freely available Sentinel-2 imagery or commercial datasets for precise field boundary delineation, especially on fragmented small farms. The review recommendation also included the use of deep learning models to fine-tune through farmer-validated ground truthing via mobile tools such as ODK and introducing a centralised geospatial data warehouse on Azure and a Power BI dashboard to streamline monitoring of crop health, water use, and regenerative outcomes. The scaling should follow a pilot–scale–sustainability roadmap, culminating in a global open-source boundary repository to drive equitable digital agriculture.

Based on the recommendations of the review, Better Cotton is looking for developing the crop monitoring system using remote sensing and field data. We thank all applicants for their interest; however only shortlisted applicants will be contacted. Better Cotton is committed to good practice and transparency in the management of natural, human and financial resources. All applications will be reviewed under the principles and subject to Better Cotton’s policies on equal opportunity, non-discrimination, anti-bribery & corruption and conflict of interest.