Abstract:
The Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) 18 Major Crops
dataset characterizes the distribution of major crops across the Global
Biogeochemical Cycles. The data set was developed using data on proportion of
harvested area within each grid cell, and therefore represents, for each grid
cell, the probability of finding a given crop in that location
... during the year.
Thus, if a crop is multiple cropped during the year, it has a higher
probability of being in a grid cell than those crops that are single cropped,
even if they occupy the same "physical" area. Furthermore, the sum of the 18
major crops and the other crops will yield the original Ramankutty and Foley
(1998) data set. This implies simplisitic assumptions such as the ignoring of
temporary fallow land (also considered cropland), croplands temporarily used as
pastures, etc. In summary, this is a global data set intended to provide very
rough indications of the probability of finding major crops in different
locations across the world in the early 1990s period.
[Summary provided by SAGE.] 
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