What is the GAEZ system? With IIASA, AGL has developed over the past 25 years an Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZ) methodology, which provides a standardized framework for characterizing climate, soil and terrain conditions relevant to agricultural production. AEZ has been used in several countries – including Bangladesh and Canada – to evaluate crop production potentials. What’s now made the AEZ approach global is the information revolution – the availability of digital global databases of climatic parameters, topography, soil and terrain, land cover and population distribution. These data have enabled us not only to revise and improve AEZ calculation procedures, but extend its crop suitability and land productivity assessments to temperate and boreal environments. We can now produce global assessments of agricultural potential.