Hundreds of Agrarian Fires in Angola (IMAGE)
Caption
Small farmers in Angola have lit their fields on fire to get rid of extraneous plant materials and return the nutrients to the soil. The fires are outlined in red. Most of the fires burn in grass or cropland. This type of field clearing is the easiest and most cost effective for the farmer. While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke that degrades air quality. Of note: about 90 percent of farmers throughout the country are smallholders. They cultivate very small plots of land, with very low productivity since the civil war which ravaged the nation. This is most likely the reason that this type of field clearing is used so extensively. Large farmlands are no longer feasible since much of the fertile land was destroyed, leaving it littered with landmines and driving millions into the cities. Much of the food is now imported into the country. NASA's Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on June 15, 2015.
Credit
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner
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