Data on a synthetic farm population of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia

Farm-scale and agent-based models draw typically on detailed and preferably spatially explicit single farm data. Data protection standards however restrict or exclude their access, as for example in Germany. We provide data on a synthetic farm population of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, mainly based on the German Farm Structure Survey 2016 and plot specific crop data from 2019/2020. The population is derived from farm typology at administrative unit level to which the observed plots are allocated afterwards. The data contains 25,858 farms and covers 1.3 million ha of agricultural land, provided at plot scale in a geospatial vector and at farm scale in tabular format. For each plot, the managing farm (including the estimated farm's location), the number of livestock, the cultivated crop, as well as the corresponding administration units are indicated. Furthermore, spatial data such as yield information, soil characteristics, as well as monitoring data on environmental status are attached. The provided data allows for diverse analysis on the farm population in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia with farm, agent-based or different bio-physical models. Furthermore, it can serve as a test data set for models which require detailed and spatially explicit farm data.