BLACKSBURG, Va., Oct. 2 -- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University issued the following news release:

With global agricultural productivity growth at its lowest rate in 50 years, the Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Initiative at Virginia Tech has launched GAP IQ, an open-access data intelligence platform designed to help governments, investors, researchers, and other decision-makers turn decades of agricultural data into actionable insights.

Developed by the GAP Initiative, housed within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), with Google Public Sector and Appnovation, GAP IQ brings productivity-related data into a single environment where users can examine trends, compare countries and regions, and ultimat...