HarvestChoice has just made accessing data about agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa easier. Launched this week, the newly-revamped HarvestChoice website gives easy access to interactive tools based on live databases and model simulation results.

The cutting-edge MAPPR, for example, enables users to pick and choose among hundreds of “layers” of map-based information about all aspects of smallholder agriculture in Africa—from poverty to rainfall—and make customized maps and summary tables.

“The new website is a big step toward our goal of creating the premier public, web-based platform that analysts, decisionmakers, or interested visitors call on to explore and download agricultural investment data in ways that suit their needs,” said Stanley Wood, leader of the HarvestChoice team at IFPRI.

Beyond tools, the website is an information storehouse, providing easy access to maps, data and publications—as well as two blogs, HarvestChoice Voice and HarvestChoice Labs.

“We are constantly refreshing and adding data,” said Jawoo Koo, a member of the HarvestChoice team who generates data about how best to increase crop yields. “It will be a very dynamic space.”

HarvestChoice, a partnership between IFPRI and the University of Minnesota, generates knowledge products that help guide strategic investments to improve the well-being of poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa through more productive and profitable farming