African farmers are using private satellite data to improve crop yields

​Last year, as the harvest season drew closer, Olabokunde Tope came across an unpleasant surprise.  While certain spots on his 70-hectare cassava farm in Ibadan, Nigeria, were thriving, a sizable parcel was pale and parched—the result of an early and unexpected halt in the rains. The cassava stems, starved of water, had withered to straw. …