The International Food Policy Research Institute's Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM) 2005 Version 3.2 provides spatially-disaggregated estimates of crop distribution. It uses a cross-entropy approach to allocate production data from countries and provinces down to grid cells, revealing spatial patterns of agricultural performance. This creates a global gridscape linking geography with agricultural production systems.
Use Cases
- Modeling spatial patterns of crop performance based on disaggregated grid cell estimates.
- Targeting agricultural development policies based on revealed geographic production systems.
- Assessing food security and environmental impacts by understanding the confluence of geography and production.
- Benchmarking crop distribution for the year 2005 using a cross-entropy allocation model.
Strengths
- Dataset is produced by the authoritative International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
- Employs a described cross-entropy modeling approach for spatial disaggregation.
- Covers a global geography, moving data from country-level to grid cells.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Last update date is unknown; the 2005 data may not reflect current conditions.
Provenance
- Source
- International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
- Collection Method
- Produced using the Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM), which applies a cross-entropy approach to disaggregate coarser administrative data.
- Time Range
- 2005
- Geography
- Global