Satellite Imagery Can Predict Future Famine and more

Now that intelligence groups have lesser use for old satellite images they collected during the Cold War era and the world has access to static geospatial maps through a few sources (including Google Earth or maps), the time series images from (say NASA) can be used to identify changes in agriculture and land use.  This kind of data can give insights into soil moisture and inferences can be made to famine, regional diets, future land use, or economic value of crops (and perhaps even disease epidemics). This is pretty powerful stuff.

With this forecast-type knowledge, food and health policy/lawmakers makers and others can be prepared or plan to handle regional issues before they become major problems.