Geographic distribution of the global agricultural workforce every decade for the years 2000-2100

TL;DR

This paper introduces a detailed global gridded dataset mapping agricultural workers from 2000 to 2100 at 10km resolution, using advanced modeling to support research on climate resilience and food security.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive, decade-by-decade global dataset of agricultural workforce distribution modeled with socioeconomic variables and SSP scenarios.

Findings

Dataset covers 2000-2100 at 10km resolution

Predictions align with Shared Socio-economic Pathways

Full time series data available for SSPs 1-5

Abstract

Agricultural workers play a vital role in the global economy and food security by cultivating, transporting, and processing food for populations worldwide. Despite their importance, detailed spatial data on the global agricultural workforce have remained scarce. Here, we present a new gridded dataset that maps the global distribution of agricultural workers for every decade over the years 2000-2100, distributed at 0.083$\times$0.083 degrees resolution, roughly $\sim$10km$\times$10km at the Equator. The dataset is developed using an empirical modeling framework relying on generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) that integrate socioeconomic variables, including gross domestic product per capita, total population, rural population size, and agricultural land use. The predictions are consistent with Shared Socio-economic Pathways and we distribute full time series data for all SSPs 1 to 5. This dataset opens new avenues for future research on labour force health, productivity and risk, and could be very useful for developing informed, forward-looking strategies that address the challenges of climate resilience in agriculture. The dataset and code for reproducing it are available for the user community [publicly available on publication at DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14443333].