Food and Agriculture Organization

AQUASTAT is FAO's global information system on water and agriculture, developed by the Land and Water Division. The main mandate of the program is to collect, analyze and disseminate information on water resources, water uses, and agricultural water management with an emphasis on countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. This allows interested users to find comprehensive and regularly updated information at global, regional, and national levels.

The Credit to Agriculture dataset provides national data for over 100 countries on the amount of loans provided by the private/commercial banking sector to producers in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, including household producers, cooperatives, and agro-businesses. For some countries, the three sub sectors of agriculture, forestry, and fishing are completely specified. In other cases, complete dis aggregations are not available. The dataset also provides statistics on the total credit to all industries, indicators on the share of credit to agricultural producers, and an agriculture orientation index (the agriculture share of credit, over the agriculture share of GDP).

The dataset includes data on gross and net production indices for various food and agriculture aggregates expressed in both totals and per capita.

Note: Ex: <0.1,<0.2,<0.3 considered as 0.1,0.2,0.3 values  

The Price domain of FAOSTAT contains data on prices received by farmers (called Producer prices) for primary crops, live animals, livestock primary products as collected at the point of initial sale (prices paid at the farm-gate). Data are provided for over 160 countries and for some 200 commodities. The Price domain provides price data in three units: i) Local Currency Units (LCU) ii) Standard Local Currency (SLC) iii) US Dollars.

The food and agricultural trade dataset is collected, processed and disseminated by FAO according to the standard International Merchandise Trade Statistics Methodology. The data is mainly provided by UNSD, Eurostat, and other national authorities as needed. This source data is checked for outliers, trade partner data is used for non-reporting countries or missing cells, and data on food aid is added to take into account total cross-border trade flows. The trade database includes the following variables: export quantity, export value, import quantity and import value. The trade database includes all food and agricultural products imported/exported annually by all the countries in the world.   Classification system: HS 2012 converted into FAO Commodity List (also known as FCL, which is a classification based on the item tree approach used for the compilation of SUA/FBS).   Sector coverage: The dataset contains all food and agricultural products imported and exported during the reference year by country. In addition to the individual country data, other item and country aggregates are disseminated. The processed trade data is essential for the compilation of Supply/Utilization Accounts (SUA) and Food Balance Sheets (FBS).   Statistical concepts and definitions:Quantity of food and agricultural exports: Export quantity is defined by the IMTS as the physical quantity of domestic origin or manufactured products shipped out of the country. It includes re-exports. According to the FAO methodology, the quantity of food and agricultural exports included in the FAOSTAT database is expressed in terms of weight (tonnes) for all commodities except for live animals which are expressed in units (heads); poultry, rabbits, pigeons and other birds are expressed in thousand units. As a general rule, trade quantity refers to net weight, excluding any sort of container.  Value of agricultural exports: Value of agricultural exports are expressed in thousand US dollars in the FAOSTAT database. Export values are reported as FOB  (free on board—that is, the value of the goods plus the value of the services performed to deliver the goods to the border of the exporting country). Quantity of food and agricultural imports: Import quantity represents the physical quantity of the products imported for domestic consumption or processing shipped into a country. It includes re-imports. According to the FAO methodology, the quantity of food and agricultural imports included in the FAOSTAT database is expressed in terms of weight (tonnes) for all commodities except for live animals which are expressed in units (heads); poultry, rabbits, pigeons and other birds are expressed in thousand units. As a general rule, trade quantity refers to net weight, excluding any sort of container. It includes also food aid quantities, where relevant.  Value of agricultural imports: Value of agricultural imports are expressed in thousand US dollars in the FAOSTAT database. Import values are reported as CIF (cost insurance and freight—that is, the value of the goods, plus the value of the services performed to deliver goods to the border of the exporting country, plus the value of the services performed to deliver the good from the border of the exporting country to the border of the importing country). Statistical unit:All crops and livestock products registered by the customs office in the country. In case of non-customs trade data, the observation unit is the trade operator. For example, within intra-EU trade statistics, this unit is any taxable person carrying out intra-EU trade. For more information, see the IMTS compiler manual, edition 2012. Statistical population:All trade data on food and agricultural products, including livestock, are compiled by all customs offices in the country. For intra-EU trade, the statistical population is all trade operators recording trade transactions over a certain threshold. Total merchandise import/export value is also included.

Value of gross production has been compiled by multiplying gross production in physical terms by output prices at farm gate. Thus, value of production measures production in monetary terms at the farm gate level. Since intermediate uses within the agricultural sector (seed and feed) have not been subtracted from production data, this value of production aggregate refers to the notion of "gross production". Value of gross production is provided in both current and constant terms and is expressed in US dollars and Standard Local Currency (SLC). The current value of production measures value in the prices relating to the period being measured. Thus, it represents the market value of food and agricultural products at the time they were produced. Knowing this figure is helpful in understanding exactly what was happening within a given economy at that point in time. Often, this information can help explain economic trends that emerged in later periods and why they took place. Value of production in constant terms is derived using the average prices of a selected year or years, known as the base period. Constant price series can be used to show how the quantity or volume of products has changed, and are often referred to as volume measures. The ratio of the current and constant price series gives a measure of price movements. US dollar figures for value of gross production are converted from local currencies using official exchange rates as prevailing in the respective years. The SLC of a country is the local currency prevailing in the latest year. Expressing data series in one uniform currency is useful because it avoids the influence of revaluation in local currency, if any, on value of production

The Fertilizers by Product dataset contains information on product amounts for the Production, Trade, Agriculture Use and Other Uses of chemical and mineral fertilizers products, over the time series 2002-present. The fertilizer statistics data are validated separately for a set of over thirty individual products. Both straight and compound fertilizers are included.

cThe dataset contains data on Import and Export Value (expressed in 1000 USD) for a selected list of fertilizers, from 1961 on wards. Country and country aggregate data are available. The fertilizers covered are: Nitrogenous fertilizers; Phosphate fertilizers; Potash fertilizers; Fertilizers Manufactured, nes; Fertilizers, Organic; Natural Phosphates; Natural Potassic Salts; Natural Sodium Nitrate.

Food Balance Sheet presents a comprehensive picture of the pattern of a country's food supply during a specified reference period. The food balance sheet shows for each food item - i.e. each primary commodity and a number of processed commodities potentially available for human consumption - the sources of supply and its utilization. The total quantity of foodstuffs produced in a country added to the total quantity imported and adjusted to any change in stocks that may have occurred since the beginning of the reference period gives the supply available during that period. On the utilization side a distinction is made between the quantities exported, fed to livestock, used for seed, put to manufacture for food use and non-food uses, losses during storage and transportation, and food supplies available for human consumption. The per caput supply of each such food item available for human consumption is then obtained by dividing the respective quantity by the related data on the population actually partaking of it. Data on per caput food supplies are expressed in terms of quantity and - by applying appropriate food composition factors for all primary and processed products - also in terms of caloric value and protein and fat content.

Data are collected directly from countries using a FAO questionnaire, which was developed in partnership with the International Monetary Fund, as the IMF collects global data on government expenditures and is the international organization responsible for developing guidelines on the Classification of Functions of Government (COFOG). The FAO questionnaire obtains additional detail relevant to Agriculture and Rural Development not available from the IMF questionnaire. The FAO dataset consists of a time series, from 2000 onwards, of government expenditures in terms of expenditures in: (1) Total; (2) Economic affairs; (3) Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, along with its three disaggregated subsectors of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing; and 4) Environmental Protection. In addition, expenditures in each detailed function are further disaggregated into recurrent and capital expenditures, the latter of which serves as a proxy for expenditures in investment goods. Additional indicators include the total share of government expenditures allocated to agriculture, and an agriculture orientation index (ratio of the total share of government expenditures to agriculture, over the total share of GDP from agricultural value-added). Though the goal is to have complete and consistent coverage for all countries, relatively low response rates for this new domain and country level differences in data collection and reporting creates some challenges in providing a complete and consistent global dataset.

Resource Statistics - Pesticides Trade

The agricultural production domain covers: Quantity produced Producer price Value at farmgate (forthcoming) Area harvested Yield per hectare  

Data on agricultural land-use are valuable for conducting studies on a various perspectives concerning agricultural production, food security and for deriving cropping intensity among others uses. Indicators derived from the land-use categories can also elucidate the environmental sustainability of countries’ agricultural practices. FAOSTAT Land-use statistics contain a wide range of information on variables that are significant for: understanding the structure of a country’s agricultural sector; making economic plans and policies for food security; deriving environmental indicators, including those related to investment in agriculture and data on gross crop area and net crop area which are useful for policy formulation and monitoring. Land-use resources sub-domain covers: Country area (including area under inland water bodies), Land area (excluding area under inland water bodies), Agricultural area, Arable land and Permanent crops, Arable land, Permanent crops, Permanent meadows and pastures, Forest area, Other land and Area equipped for irrigation. Detailed information on sub-categories: Temporary crops, Temporary meadows and pastures, Fallow land (temporary: less than 5 years), Permanent meadows and pastures cultivated and naturally grown and Organic land. Data are available from 1961 to 2009 for more than 200 countries and areas. Forest area: Global Forest Resource Assessment 2010 (FRA 2010) is the main source of forest area data in FAOSTAT. Data were provided by countries for years 1990, 2000, 2005 and 2010. Data for intermediate years were estimated for FAO using linear interpolation and tabulation. Some of the most interesting data for economists is found in this domain. The national distribution of land, among arable land, pastures and other lands, as well as the importance of irrigation are just some of the interesting data sets.

The Pesticides Use database includes data on the use of major pesticide groups (Insecticides, Herbicides, Fungicides, Plant growth regulators and Rodenticides) and of relevant chemical families. Data report the quantities (in tonnes of active ingredients) of pesticides used in or sold to the agricultural sector for crops and seeds. Information on quantities applied to single crops is not available.