Unveiling Characteristics of the Global Crop Production System

Ensuring global food security while limiting environmental impacts and supporting the economy requires a multidisciplinary perspective in analysis. Crops, which are the foundation for providing humans with food and livestock with feed, significantly impact both biophysical and human systems over time. Thus, we have conceptualised the crop production system into biophysical, human, and integrated systems and assembled relevant datasets for these systems. The dataset choices were gathered through surveys from expert opinions and compiled at a 5-arcminute resolution from 1992 to 2020. Furthermore, we analysed the global gridded dataset characteristics by utilising the Two-step Self-Organising Map method. These characteristics will be grouped into clusters showing differences and similarities in crop production across the globe using hierarchical cluster analysis. The clusters will be further analysed based on the diversity within each country and the changes in clusters over time. The results of this research are expected to contribute to the understanding and communication of global crop production from a socio-ecological perspective from 1992 to 2020. More research is encouraged to validate the conceptualisation and build upon these characteristics to further analyse the system, potentially leading to the creation of more relevant and sustainable policies.