Land used for agricultural production presents a tradeoff to society. On one hand, agricultural lands provide essential food, feed, fiber, and increasingly, biofuels. On the other hand, in their natural state, these lands could provide additional important ecosystem services. Many social, political, and economic factors drive land use decisions and the choice to manage for some services at the expense of others. Understanding the tradeoffs among ecosystem services is critical to manage ecosystems for multiple goals. Some tradeoffs connect local actions with global issues. Agricultural practices affect carbon storage, with consequences for greenhouse gasses and climate change. How do we balance the need to expand agricultural production with the need to maintain or even expand ecosystem carbon stocks? EarthStat.org serves geographic data sets with the purpose of solving the grand challenge of feeding a growing global population while reducing agriculture’s impact on the environment. The data sets on EarthStat allow users to map the distribution of crops globally, analyze the impact of climate change on crop yields, understand the impacts of fertilizer and manure use and much more.
