GROW-Africa (Groundtruthing Remote-sensing for Optimizing Yield in Africa) Database, v1.0

The GROW-Africa (Groundtruthing Remote-sensing for Optimizing Yield in Africa) Database includes n = 535,844 georeferenced observations of crop yields across Africa for the period 1960-2023. The vast majority of the observations span the period 2000-2023. The database includes 25 key crops, including maize, sorghum, cassava, groundnuts, cowpeas, rice, yams, and millet. The database assimilates observations from a range of spatial scales, from regional government statistics, to household farmer surveys, to plot-level crop cuts. The GROW-Africa database is intended to provide a platform for performing data-driven analyses of historical yield trends, as well as for training algorithms to quantify crop yields from Earth Observation (satellite) data.

The database is described in the publication:

Geyman, E.C., Ferris, A., Sahajpal, R., Anderson, W., Lee, D., and Hausmann, N. An Africa-wide agricultural production database to support policy and satellite-based measurement systems. Scientific Data (in review). 2025.