Global spatial data on yields of wheat, sugarcane and maize at 0.25 and 0.5 degrees resolution for 2000-2014. Annual data on wheat, sugarcane and maize yield have been extracted from agricultural statistics, which are recorded annually at regional and national scale depending on the country. The yield data were spatially disaggregated to produce gridded maps (0.25 and 0.5 degrees spatial resolution) of yields per crop type. The earthstat dataset, which provides gridded data on crop distribution (i.e. a crop mask for 2000q), was used to obtain information on the spatial distribution of wheat, sugarcane and maize across the world. The spatial disaggregation process was repeated for every year between 2000 and 2014. The data were produced to constrain agro-ecosystem carbon cycling estimates used in large-scale atmospheric CO2 inversion studies and to be used as inputs in agro-ecosystem biogeochemistry models. The data are provided in netcdf4 (.nc) format.

The data were produced by spatially disaggregating annual agricultural statistics-based estimates of harvest yields for wheat, maize and sugarcane. Annual yield data for wheat, maize and sugarcane were collected from national and international institutions (e.g. Eurostat, USDA, and FAO). This information was (1) combined with gridded data on wheat, sugarcane and maize distribution obtained from the earthstat dataset in order to (2) to produce gridded yield information across the world. Where subnational scale yield data were available (i.e. country, state, region-specific value provided by e.g. Eurostat and USDA) they were used. Where subnational yield data were not available the national average was used. Where no data were available no crop yield estimates have been added to the final gridded dataset.