Improving plant health globally with comprehensive data and innovative methods
Our vision
A food-secure world driven by better decision making and resource allocation.
Our mission
To support informed decision-making in plant health by generating and communicating accurate, timely and actionable estimates of crop losses to stakeholders.
The burden of crop loss is a global challenge
Losing less of the crops already sown, on land already under cultivation, is a key opportunity for improving sustainable food systems. While there is increasing recognition of potential gains from tackling post-harvest losses and consumer food waste, the problem of in-field losses remains poorly understood. Up to 40% of crops globally are lost due to pests before they’re even harvested, highlighting huge potential for improving pre-harvest yields.
Effective action against crop loss requires better data on its scale, patterns, and drivers. Current information is often outdated, fragmented, or inaccessible, with research narrowly focused on specific pests or regions. This disconnect leaves decision-makers without the insights needed to quantify losses, identify priorities, and guide interventions. Improved, shared data is essential for informed policies, management, and investments.
The Global Burden of Crop Loss team
The Global Burden of Crop Loss progamme, led by CABI, brings together experts, researchers and scientists from around the globe, sharing a common goal - to provide better plant health data to improve decision making relating to food security on a global scale.
At the core of GBCL is a technical delivery team comprised of CABI scientists and GBCL collaborators. The technical delivery team is tasked with developing and applying methodologies to data to produce economic burden estimates for major global crops.
Anna Szyniszewska PhD, Technical Lead.
I am a geographer and modeller passionate about research in crop protection and food security. In my interdisciplinary work, I apply geospatial analysis, statistical, as well as mechanistic modelling to understand how people, the environment and biotic pressures shape food systems.
In my role as a Technical Lead for GBCL, I focus on a range of food system aspects, crop production, the distribution, frequency and impact of biotic and abiotic stressors, and the economic burden of crop losses.
View Anna's LinkedIn profile.
Bryony Taylor PhD, Project Executive, GBCL (Head of Modelling and Data Science, CABI).
I have over 18 years of experience developing, implementing, and managing projects which utilize data driven approaches to address problems relating to pests and diseases within agricultural systems.
My main area of focus over recent years has been on projects which utilize or explore the use of data derived from earth observation sources to predict outbreaks of plant pests and diseases and predict the efficacy of interventions.
View Bryony's LinkedIn profile.
Cambria Finegold, Global Director, Digital Development, CABI.
At CABI, I am responsible for the strategic direction and technical oversight of the Digital Development theme and I lead work on harnessing the power of data, knowledge, and ICTs to support the Sustainable Development Goals.
My interests include data science, human-centred design, systems approaches/complexity science, geospatial modelling, and interdisciplinary methods that combine natural and social science.
View Brie's LinkedIn profile.
Gaby Oliver, Data Science Assistant, CABI.
Gaby is the Junior Data Scientist with a background in Zoology, and her main role includes sourcing and compiling the data that is used in the GBCL modelling work.
View Gaby's LinkedIn profile.
Joe Beeken, Data Scientist, CABI.
Joe supports GBCL by working on the attribution of crop losses to biotic pressures through the analysis and modelling of plant health data. Joe specializes in ecological and spatial analysis techniques to quantify and understand crop losses in time and space. In addition, Joe supports GBCL in other ways by sourcing and processing plant health datasets to be in usable formats for analysis in other GBCL areas.
View Joe's LinkedIn profile.
Rasaki Arasah, GBCL Project Manager
As Project Manager, I am responsible for the technical and financial management of GBCL and other CABI initiatives that use data and modelling to address challenges in agriculture.
I have over 14 years of experience in planning, executing, and closing projects. I have led cross-functional teams to successfully deliver complex projects across various industries, including social interventions in development and humanitarian settings.
View Rasaki's LinkedIn profile.
Salar Mahmood, Senior Data Scientist, CABI.
Salar is a Senior Data Scientist, he is specialist in spatial analysis and agriculture modelling. His role in GBCL is collecting, processing and analysing crop and environmental data, predicting crop yield, estimating attainable yield and yield losses and attributing them to biotic and abiotic factors. More broadly, at CABI Salar provide technical support to internships and MSc students and contribute to business development proposals and meetings.
View Salar's LinkedIn profile.
The technical working group
A technical working group guides the work of the GBCL technical delivery team. Each member brings specific, highly specialized skills and expertise from their field of work. For more specific information on how we do this, visit How we work.
Dan Bebber (co-Chair), Professor in Ecology, University of Exeter.
An internationally recognized expert in modelling distributions and impacts of crop pests and pathogens. His primary research focuses on sustainable agriculture, particularly the ecology and evolution of fungal crop pathogens and the effects of climate change on crop production.
View Dan's LinkedIn profile.
Molly Brown, Chief Science Officer, 6th Grain.
Molly is a geographer and a biologist, with an interest in understanding the impact of environmental shocks on food systems and markets. Her focus is on researching how climate variability, as measured by satellite remote sensing, affects health outcomes and food security in the developing world.
View Molly's LinkedIn profile.
Alice Milne PhD, Agricultural Systems Modeller, Rothamsted Research.
Dr Alice Milne (AEM) is a mathematician in the Sustainable Agriculture Sciences Department and leads the Epidemiological Modelling Group within the Biointeractions and Crop Protection Department. Alice has expertise in applying mathematics to biological and agricultural systems.
Kai Sonder, Geographic Information System Laboratory Manager, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Kai manages the Geographic Information System (GIS) unit at CIMMYT, which provides spatial data and analysis, targeting and foresight work and agro meteorology. It also provides training on GIS to CIMMYT’s scientists and partners working on development-oriented agricultural research on maize, wheat and conservation agriculture in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
View Kai's LinkedIn profile.
If you have relevant skills and a passion for plant health, data, and research to shape the future of agriculture, and would like to join our technical working group, visit our Contact Us page
Our donors
Global Burden of Crop Loss was initiated under a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges, Call to Action grant in 2019. This 18-month scoping study allowed the team to outline the existing data landscape, map out collaborative networks and propose analytical methods to deliver the Global Burden of Crop Loss initiative. The study concluded that:
- there is a clear demand for accurate, timely and spatially explicit information on the burden and causes of crop loss;
- that the data and methodology needed to develop such metrics exist; And,
- the research community is willing and capable of undertaking this task.
On this basis, the initiative moved forward and the project team has been gathering datasets, building partnerships and developing a scalable governance system that supports participation by a broad range of partners.
Over the next three years, FCDO funding will enable us to move from this proof-of-concept stage to delivering full burden estimates, establishing our data infrastructure, promoting the uptake of results, and developing a sound business model. Specifically, we will:
- deliver an authoritative, data-driven service providing trusted metrics on the magnitude and drivers of crop loss across geographies and crops, at a global scale.
- deliver economic burden estimates for three major global crops (maize, wheat and rice) and two regional estimates for important tropical food security crops (cassava and banana) generating actionable insights.
- work with key end-users and stakeholders to improve information uptake and change behaviours to improve resource allocation to combat food insecurity.
- prioritise sustainability and innovative business models and approaches will guarantee sustained impact and the long-term viability of the initiative for lasting global impact.
Publications and updates
By losing less of what we grow, our food systems will be able to feed more people without expanding cultivated areas or increasing the environmental impact of agriculture. Smarter choices, leading to lower losses, will ultimately be a more sustainable way of increasing yields than expansion or intensification.
Read our Publications below to find more information about the Global Burden of Crop Loss's actionable evidence.
