Data concerning land use, land cover, and changes in land over time.  Includes agriculture, forests, and restoration.

land

Land

Data concerning land use, including monitoring grasslands and pastures, agriculture, and  conservation. 

land-use-status

Land Use & Status

### Overview  
  
The Crop Land and Production dataset shows the global harvested area, production, and yield for six major crops: wheat, soybean, rice,  maize, coffee, and cotton. The dataset was derived from the 2010 Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM). The SPAM model aimed to disaggregate (downscale) national and sub-national crop statistics using a variety of inputs, such as cropland surface, location of irrigated areas, crop suitability and potential yields, rural population densities, production systems characteristics and crop prices. Crop data was downscaled to a spatial resolution of 5 arc minutes. This spatial resolution is approximately 10 kilometers x 10 kilometers at the equator, but [changes with distance](https://www.thoughtco.com/degree-of-latitude-and-longitude-distance-4070616) from the equator. 

Together, maize, rice, soybean, and wheat account for nearly two-thirds of global agricultural calories. Global demand for these crops is rising as a result of diet shifts, rising population levels, and increased biofuel demand. Increased demand for these resources will significantly affect land and resource use, climate change, political agendas, and technological developments. A comprehensive understanding of the current spatial distribution of the world’s crops is necessary in order to preemptively address these effects. The Crop Land Area and Production dataset can be used to understand the extent and productivity of key global crops, which will help address food crop demand and its effects. 

The Crop Land Area and Production dataset was generated by the [Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (CGIAR-PIM)](https://pim.cgiar.org/about/). CGIAR-PIM provides support for policies that help farmers improve their lives, produce nutritious and affordable foods, and protect the soil, water and biodiversity in rural landscapes. The program is led by the [International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)](https://www.ifpri.org/about), a CGIAR-PIM research center. IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger in developing countries. The Crop Land Area and Production dataset was part of the larger SPAM dataset, which was developed for the HarvestChoice research initiative. Conducted by IFPRI, [HarvestChoice](https://www.ifpri.org/project/harvestchoice) generated knowledge products to help guide strategic investments to improve the well-being of poor people in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through more productive and profitable farming.
  
  
### Methodology  
  
The main purpose of SPAM is to disaggregate crop statistics (e.g., harvested area, production quantity, and yield) by different farming systems and to further allocate such disaggregated statistics into spatially gridded units. The whole procedure entails a data fusion approach that combines information from different sources and at different spatial scales by deploying various matching
and calibration processes. Then all the data elements are processed by the optimization model, which generates results at the grid level. There are three submodules in a standardized SPAM model: disaggregation, optimization, and allocation. The SPAM2010 is conceptualized based on this general setting, while it adds further methodological and data improvements, which mainly include the update of base year, the expansion of subnational administrative-unit coverage, the extension of crop list, and the substitution of the latest hybrid cropland map as the basic allocation layer.

The first step for SPAM is to disaggregate crop statistics of agricultural production (e.g., the yield, harvested area, and total production) by administrative-unit levels (k), crop type (j), and farming system (l) from coarser scale to finer scale. The four production systems were defined by water and management type:
- Irrigated – high input (I)
- Rainfed – high input (H)
- Rainfed – low input (L)
- Rainfed – subsistence (S)

The four conceptualized farming systems are mainly delineated by the water supply system and inputs used by farmers, despite global data on farming system shares for each crop being largely absent. For a small number of large countries, e.g., Brazil, China, India, Russia, the United States, the authors have data on farming system shares at the ADM1 level. For the other countries the authors assigned the national farming system shares to each ADM1 level and then adjusted individual ADM1 farming system shares in light of the supporting evidence. For irrigated farming systems, the crop-specific shares are derived by dividing the harvested area cultivated under full control irrigation obtained from [Global Information System on Water and Agriculture (AQUASTAT)](https://www.fao.org/aquastat/en/), [MIRCA](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008GB003435), and
country-level statistics by the overall harvested area.

The optimization module in SPAM2010 is almost the same as that in previous versions. The authors applied a cross-entropy process in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS), which ensures that the optimization procedure iterates until a solution is found. Once the allocation is successful, meaning that an optimal or locally optimal solution has been found, the routine immediately returns the allocated physical area by grid, crop and farming system, and the program continues with post-processing automatically.

The SPAM model used additional biological and economic inputs to allocate the statistics within each pixel. Input data included (among several others):
- Administrative units
- Crop Type
- Farming system
- Adjusted harvested area
- Total suitable area in each grid by crop and farming system
- Crop prices
- Market accessibility in each grid
- Population density

Our data catalog provides three of the SPAM2010 essential output indicators:

- Harvested Area: also measured in hectares, harvested area is at least as large as physical area but sometimes more since it also accounts for multiple harvests of a crop on the same plot. Like for physical area, the harvested area is calculated for each production system, and the sum of all harvested areas of all production systems in a pixel amounts to the total harvested area of the
pixel. The sum of all the harvested areas of the crops in a pixel can be larger than the pixel size.
- Production: for each production system and crop, production is calculated by multiplying the area harvested by its corresponding yield. It is measured in metric tons. The total production of a crop includes the production of all production systems of that crop.
- Yield: is the amount of production per harvested area and measured in kilograms per hectare. It is a measure of productivity. The total yield of a crop, when considering all production systems, is the weighted average of the four systems’ yields.

For the full documentation, please see the source [methodology](https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/3545/2020/essd-12-3545-2020.pdf).
  
  
### Additional Information  
  
Our data catalog shows only a subset of the dataset. The Global Spatially-Disaggregated Crop Production Statistics Data for 2010 Version 2.0 has data for 36 other crops (42 total). The full dataset also includes physical area and value of production for all 42 crops. For access to the full dataset and additional information, click the “Learn more” button.

Our data catalog has previously shown data for [2005](https://bit.ly/3CjoFYc). This dataset was archived because the methodology has been changed.  
  
### Visualizing the Data  
  
Our team reformatted this dataset before displaying it on WRI’s data catalog. See the documentation on how we retrieved the data on [Github](https://github.com/resource-watch/data-pre-processing/tree/master/foo_005_rw1_crop_area_production).  
  
### Disclaimer  
  
Excerpts of this description page were taken from the source metadata.

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (CGIAR-PIM)

Global Spatially-Disaggregated Crop Production Statistics Data for 2010 Version 2.0

foo-005-rw1-crop-land-area-and-production-crt

agriadapt

AgriAdapt

2010 Robusta Coffee Harvested Area (ha)

2010 Wheat Production (MT)

2010 Rice Harvested Area (ha)

2010 Arabica Coffee Harvested Area (ha)

2010 Arabica Coffee Yield (kg/ha)

2010 Maize Harvested Area (ha)

2010 Robusta Coffee Yield (kg/ha)

2010 Maize Production (MT)

2010 Robusta Coffee Production (MT)

2010 Soybean Production (MT)

2010 Wheat Harvested Area (ha)

2010 Cotton Harvested Area (ha)

2010 Rice Production (MT)

2010 Soybean Harvested Area (ha)

2010 Arabica Coffee Production (MT)

2010 Rice Yield (kg/ha)

2010 Cotton Yield (kg/ha)

2010 Cotton Production (MT)

Production, harvested area, and yield for wheat, soybean, rice, maize, coffee, and cotton crops for the year 2010

Crop Land Area and Production