Tracking Research in Agriculture, Chains, & Ecosystems

Website Description (TRACE-AG / G-CASS) TRACE-AG (Tracking Research in Agriculture, Chains & Ecosystems) is a global surveillance platform that applies public health monitoring methods to the food system. The platform integrates data on crop conditions, extreme temperatures, flooding, and supply chain disruptions to provide continuous, systematic assessment of agricultural performance and food security across countries and regions. The system enables users to examine how environmental shocks propagate through agricultural production and into downstream supply chains. Through an interactive interface, users can explore temporal trends, compare geographic areas, and identify emerging risks to food systems. TRACE-AG introduces dynamic metrics including speed, acceleration, jerk, and persistence to quantify the pace, direction, and stability of change, extending analytic approaches previously applied to pandemic tracking into the domain of agriculture and food systems. This platform was developed as a proof of concept to demonstrate how surveillance science can be adapted to monitor global agricultural and supply chain conditions in near real time. It represents a shift from static reporting toward continuous monitoring and early signal detection, with direct relevance for research, policy, and operational decision making. TRACE-AG was developed through long standing collaborations established under Feed the Future, reflecting over a decade of joint work across institutions beginning in 2010. The project was supported by leadership from Dr. Vara Prasad, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Crops, Climate and Communities at Kansas State University, whose work focuses on crop responses to changing environments and strategies to sustain agricultural productivity under stress. The platform is the first multilingual web application developed at Northwestern University, with full functionality available in English, Hindi, and Chinese, including native script integration. This design enables broader global engagement and accessibility across key agricultural regions. Together, TRACE-AG provides a scalable framework for monitoring the intersection of climate, agriculture, and supply chains, offering a foundation for future expansion into forecasting, intervention targeting, and global food system resilience.