Monitoring crop productivity

"Our interest in the synoptic performance of the program emerged when using time series remotely sensed data to identify the spatiotemporal performance of agricultural fields in Malawi. We discovered an unexpected national declining trend of annual farm productivity and a national flat-line trend during the December–April growing season. Problematically, this trend runs counter to the well-established narrative of increased maize production and dramatically improved yields."—Messina et al. 2017

Messina, J., Peter, B. G., and Snapp, S. 2017. Re-evaluating the Malawian farm input subsidy programme. Nature Plants 3(4):17013.
CARTOGRAPHY
Sometimes a lot of information has to be packed into one figure. In this one, I tested out using the inset map location indicators to frame the time-series charts and balance the negative space that typically exists when incorporating multiple components into one.​​​​​​​