The MARS STAT Action is part of the Agriculture and fisheries Unit of the Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizens of the Directorate General Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
The mission of the Agriculture and Fisheries Unit is to provide scientific and technical support to other Directorate Generals of the EC and to Member States: in the management and control of direct aids to farmers, in the timely forecasts of the major European crops production (MARS STAT mission), in issuing food security adequate warnings for world-wide regions at risk, in the control and management of the fisheries policy.

This CDROM, dedicated to the MARS CROP YIELD FORECASTING SYSTEM, focuses on one of the elements of the system dedicated to crop growth modelling and simulation (level 2): the crop knowledge base.

This CDROM is specifically dedicated to Central European Countries and it is mainly based on the final report of the MOCA study, prepared under the Contract N 20363-2002-12 F1ED ISP, carried out by GISAT (CZ). The purpose was to collect crop data and parameters to be used in the context of crop modelling and forecasting such as cropping calendars, phenology and agriculture practices.

In the first section of the CDROM, a description of the project is presented, including structure of the completed database and rules used during the data collection.

The other three sections give the results for 11 countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey. All the gathered data are structured in an ACCESS database which is available in JRC (contact [email protected]).