Crops
The crop-region map behind these counts was redrawn on 17 September. No count published before then compares with one here.
Ten of Guatemala’s 22 crop regions are at a record low. Two was the previous worst.
Five other countries also passed their own previous worst, which is a normal number in any given week. 129 crop regions worldwide are at their worst on record for this point in the season, against a typical 86, higher than all but one of the last twelve years. Where they cluster is what this page is about.
Newest observation: the ten days to 10 September, 15 days ago. All 165 places are reporting at this dekad.
Crops is the confirming instrument. It is never more than one publication behind its source, which puts it 9 to 18 days back depending where the cycle sits. It answers how a season compares with twenty-six others, not what happened yesterday.
A season that has not opened cannot be measured, so this page says most about countries whose season is starting. 26 of the 165 countries measured here, about one in six, open a growing season between now and early November, among them Spain and Argentina. That is a calendar, not a forecast.
Countries readers ask about
Shown every week, whether or not anything is happening in them. Each is measured against its own record and never against the others.
The top number is the whole season added up, so one bad month barely shows. The others are conditions right now, which is why they moved first.
Ordered by how much of each country’s cropland is far into its own 26-year range right now, across the four fast instruments, weighted by ASAP’s crop mask so a region with no cropland has no vote. That is breadth, not severity. A country with one region in an extreme state and the rest ordinary sits lower here than one where everything is somewhat bad, so the per-country figures below are the ones that say how bad. The harvest measure is deliberately left out of the ordering: it integrates from sowing, so it cannot say what is abnormal now. This average is ours rather than an agency’s.
Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Australia, Belgium, Benin, Bhutan, Botswana, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Colombia, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Iceland, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Montenegro, Namibia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Türkiye, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela and Zambia are placed on partial coverage this dekad: some regions were not reported, so their ordering rests on fewer readings than the rest. The thinnest is 29% of what that country reports when fullest.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26, but from the 20th highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. Weighted by cropland area, so Northern carries 41% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Chinandega carries 36% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Bern carries 17% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Niederöster carries 51% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Nitriansky kraj carries 27% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Bekes carries 9% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Narok carries 11% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Maio carries 85% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 2nd steepest fall of 26, but from the 14th highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. Weighted by cropland area, so Upper Nile carries 46% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Republika Srpska carries 58% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Južno-Bački carries 13% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Diekirch carries 53% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Yuma carries 20% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Grand Est carries 15% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Pomurska carries 41% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Wexford carries 17% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st steepest fall of 26.
U.K. of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so England carries 86% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Clarendon carries 34% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Artibonite carries 47% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 6th steepest fall of 26, but from the 9th highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. Weighted by cropland area, so Oromia carries 46% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Groningen carries 19% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Ségou carries 24% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Walloon Region carries 54% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Camagüey carries 10% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 13th steepest fall of 26, but from the 23rd highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. Weighted by cropland area, so Guanacaste carries 45% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Est carries 17% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
3rd most stressed of 26, 4th steepest fall of 26, but from the 9th highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. Weighted by cropland area, so Bayern carries 17% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
4th most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Castilla y León carries 30% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 8th steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Mahaica Berbice carries 44% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Syddanmark carries 30% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, rose over this window, ranking 16th of 26 by fall steepness, from the 16th highest starting level of those 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Jawa Timur carries 21% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
6th most stressed of 26, 4th steepest fall of 26, but from the 4th highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. Weighted by cropland area, so Emilia-Romagna carries 12% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 4th steepest fall of 26, but from the 5th highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. Weighted by cropland area, so Le Kef carries 18% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Chollanam-Do carries 18% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 13th steepest fall of 26, but from the 25th highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. Weighted by cropland area, so Central Luzon carries 18% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
2nd most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Västra Götaland carries 18% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
11th most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Tiaret carries 13% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
4th most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Al Jawf carries 36% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
13th most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Kostanay Region carries 24% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
13th most stressed of 26, rose over this window, ranking 24th of 26 by fall steepness, from the 21st highest starting level of those 26. Weighted by cropland area, so Wielkopolskie carries 12% of this figure and the smallest regions barely move it.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. Each of the 4 regions counts equally, so one carries 25% of this figure whatever its cropland area: the cropland reference data was absent at build time, so this figure is NOT area-weighted.
1st most stressed of 26, 3rd steepest fall of 26, but from the 20th highest starting level of those 26, so it is not a record fall once that is accounted for. This country figure IS Haut-Ogooue, the only region with any cropland in ASAP's mask.
12th most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. This country figure IS Taiwan, which is the country's only crop region.
1st most stressed of 26, 1st steepest fall of 26. This country figure IS Isle of Man, which is the country's only crop region.
Where the record lows are
Grouped by country, because a single region at a record low is common and several in one country is not. Countries beyond their own recent maximum come first; the rest follow by how far their worst region has fallen.
Guatemala10 of 22 regions, against a previous high of 2 and a recent average of 0.42
10 regions
Angola6 of 18 regions, against a previous high of 2 and a recent average of 0.5
6 regions
Peru5 of 24 regions, against a previous high of 1 and a recent average of 0.17
5 regions
Cambodia5 of 26 regions, against a previous high of 2 and a recent average of 0.5
5 regions
Malaysia4 of 14 regions, against a previous high of 3 and a recent average of 0.5
4 regions
Sudan5 of 18 regions, against a previous high of 4 and a recent average of 0.42
5 regions
El Salvador4 regions at a record low
4 regions
Zimbabwe1 region at a record low
1 region
Suriname2 regions at a record low
2 regions
Libya1 region at a record low
1 region
Australia2 regions at a record low
2 regions
Burundi2 regions at a record low
2 regions
Papua New Guinea2 regions at a record low
2 regions
Ecuador2 regions at a record low
2 regions
Colombia3 regions at a record low
3 regions
Puerto Rico4 regions at a record low
4 regions
Zambia2 regions at a record low
2 regions
United Republic of Tanzania5 regions at a record low
5 regions
Chad5 regions at a record low
5 regions
Honduras3 regions at a record low
3 regions
34 further countries hold one or two regions at a record low, which is what an ordinary dekad looks like.
Everywhere else we measure
101 more places, in the same order as above: worst first by how much of each place is far into its own 26-year range this dekad. Every place we publish has a page, whether or not anything is happening in it.
Eritrea · Albania · Croatia · Sri Lanka · Czech Republic · Rwanda · The Republic of North Macedonia · Belize · Montenegro · Sierra Leone · Romania · Panama · Greece · Bulgaria · Democratic Republic of the Congo · Moldova - Republic of · Mauritania · Mexico · Gambia · Mozambique · Benin · Senegal · Niger · Viet Nam · Central African Republic · Ukraine · Nigeria · Belarus · Malawi · Norway · Yemen · Israel · Fiji · Jordan · Guinea · Thailand · Ghana · Estonia · Côte d'Ivoire · Portugal · Latvia · Cameroon · Madagascar · Pakistan · United States of America · Venezuela · Morocco · Congo · Lao People's Democratic Republic · India · Lithuania · Togo · Timor-Leste · Iran (Islamic Republic of) · New Zealand · Bhutan · Trinidad and Tobago · Egypt · Syrian Arab Republic · Mongolia · Somalia · Guinea-Bissau · Bolivia · Lebanon · China · Uruguay · Oman · Russian Federation · Türkiye · Afghanistan · Tajikistan · Dem People's Rep of Korea · Iceland · Finland · Canada · South Africa · Chile · Iraq · Azerbaijan · Bangladesh · Brazil · Uzbekistan · Namibia · Japan · Kyrgyzstan · Turkmenistan · Eswatini · Paraguay · Nepal · Myanmar · Georgia · Botswana · Cyprus · Armenia · Argentina · Faroe Islands · Mauritius · Liberia · New Caledonia · Kuril islands · Lesotho
Falling fastest
A different question from the one above: not how stressed a place is, but how fast it has got worse. Ordered by the change in cumulative vegetation score over the last four dekads, steepest first, which is the figure shown. A place appears only if that fall holds once its starting level is controlled for: 101 of the reported places fall from a high start, where part of the drop is a return toward the average, and none of them is listed. The 12 steepest of 63 that hold.
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The Central American isthmus
All eight countries on the Central American isthmus are in their four worst crop years out of 26. One of them was worse in 2015 than it is now.
Falling fastest
26 countries are falling faster than in any year on record, against a prior maximum of 9 and a typical 2.8. That is a count of countries, tested as a set: it asks whether 26 is an unusual number to be falling this fast at once, not whether any one of them is unusual.
A country enters this count on the four-dekad fall in the harvest measure, after controlling for the level it fell from and for the across-year trend. Both controls matter: a steep fall from a high start is arithmetic rather than news, and the series itself drifts, so a bare rank is partly that drift. Without them the same dekad counts 39 countries rather than 26. No country is named here, because an individual at rank 1 is what chance produces several times over a set this size.
The same season, counted two ways
These croplands have been getting greener for twenty-five years. Leave that trend in and this season’s crop result is better than usual; take it out and it lands in the worse third.
Crop result across the 26 years of this dekad: 13 of 26 with the trend left in, 3 of 26 with it taken out. Neither is the correct one; they answer different questions.
This dekad against the whole record
Where each figure sits among the 26 years of this same dekad, across all 165 places we measure. Detrended is the figure to read: these instruments drift, and the drift is upward, so the raw rank flatters every stress claim. Both are shown because they disagree and a reader should see that there was a choice.
| detrended | raw | |
|---|---|---|
| all four instruments available everywhere, read togetherTemperature, Vegetation, cumulative, Vegetation, current, Water satisfaction | 1 of 26 | 1 of 26 |
| the season-cumulative crop outcomeVegetation, cumulative | 3 of 26 | 13 of 26 |
| the purely meteorological instrumentsRainfall, 3-month, Temperature | 1 of 26 | 1 of 26 |
These are two named groups, not a split of the five: Vegetation, current and Water satisfaction belong to neither, being an instantaneous crop state and a modelled water balance. So the two lines cannot be read as "the weather" against "the crops" with nothing left over.
- Detrending moves these two figures in opposite directions, so raw and detrended are both emitted and neither stands alone. Temperature worsens almost everywhere and cropland greens, so the raw gap between them is widened by two secular trends rather than by this season alone.
- 0.5 is the mean of every place's own series by construction and is not a normal to compare against. Use the observed range across the record, which is what the series carries.
- The crop outcome instrument is cumulative over the growing cycle, so at this dekad it integrates a season that has not finished. It is a reading of conditions to date and carries no statement about the rest of the season.
How we know 81 is an ordinary number
The expectation rises with the number of units, not with the weather, so any map at this resolution shows dozens of record lows every week. The figure marked is what an EVEN spread of records would give, and records do not fall evenly. The last 12 years of this dekad averaged 86.3 and ranged from 45 to 160, counted over the same places shown here.
This measurement is of the crop canopy and not of what stressed it: heat, drought, disease and late planting are not separable here, which is why no row on this page names a cause.
How these figures are built, including what this channel measures and what it does not.