Geospatial data of crop distribution are needed for modelling and monitoring the status and trends of productive and sustainable agriculture at subnational scales.

Today, the FAO Statistics Division released a new Statistics Working Paper titled "Embedding CROPGRIDS into FAO Geodata Platforms", together with the release of the associated geospatial crop data in the FAO -in-Hand platform. This publication details the data architecture and Python-based development work undertaken to operationalize CROPGRIDS—a novel data fusion model designed to produce high-resolution global crop maps.

The work undertaken demonstrates how methodological innovations from the research domain can be transformed into robust operational tools for global agricultural data and statistics. By delivering harmonized, high-resolution, and policy-relevant crop data, this initiative supports FAO’s efforts to provide up-to-date global data on food and agriculture.