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FAO. 2022. World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2022. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc2211en
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Timely, accurate and high-quality data and statistics are the cornerstone of solid policy design, where decisions are based on hard evidence, and monitoring and evaluation rely on strong statistical systems. This has become all the more critical as governments around the world commit to major sectoral and national development plans, as well as regional and global development agendas. Furthermore, recent events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have emphasized the pressing need for data and statistics to inform timely responses and monitor trends.
Statistical work has been at the core of the activities and mandate of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since the Organization was founded in 1945, supporting its Members in eliminating hunger, improving nutrition, eradicating rural poverty, and promoting inclusive and efficient agrifood systems. FAO is a leading provider of internationally comparable data on food, nutrition and agriculture, which are gathered from national statistical offices and from FAO’s network of partner agencies and are harmonized to paint a global picture. All of these data are summarized in this Statistical Yearbook.
The Statistical Yearbook was revamped in 2020 on the occasion of FAO’s 75th anniversary, underscoring the importance that FAO assigns to data and statistics as a global public good at the core of our efforts to advance sustainable development. It is now a primary tool and indispensable reference for policymakers, researchers and analysts, as well as laypersons interested in the past, present and future paths of food and agriculture. This year, special focus is given to data on agrifood systems and data made more relevant by the war in Ukraine.
Drawing on the wealth of information that FAO statisticians produce across the Organization, this publication, prepared by the Statistics Division, offers a synthesis of the major factors at play in the global food and agricultural landscape. Statistics are presented in four thematic chapters, covering the economic importance of agricultural activities; inputs, outputs and factors of production; implications for food security and nutrition; and agriculture’s impacts on the environment.
This Statistical Yearbook is only one of a series of tools and statistical publications that FAO provides to users. The freely accessible FAOSTAT data platform contains the largest statistical database on food and agriculture in the world, with approximately 20 000 indicators covering more than 245 countries and territories, and around 2 million views each year. The Statistical Yearbook is accompanied by the shorter Statistical Pocketbook, which provides a quick and easy reference to the main facts and trends in food and agriculture.
In addition to compiling and disseminating data, FAO is also involved in strengthening the statistical capacity of countries so they can produce more and better data, set standards and methodologies, and leverage big data innovations. FAO is committed to ensuring free access to current, reliable, timely and trusted data, necessary to chart a course towards more sustainable and equitable agrifood systems and a world free of hunger.
José Rosero Moncayo
Director, Statistics Division
This statistical yearbook was prepared by the Statistics Division (ESS) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the Communications (OCC), Fisheries and Aquaculture (NFI), Forestry (NFO), Land and Water (NSL) and Markets and Trade (EST) divisions. Olivier Lavagne d’Ortigue led the work under the direction of José Rosero Moncayo (ESS Director). We would like to thank the following for their contributions and input: Iana Arkhipova, Veronica Boero, Carlo Cafiero, Giulia Conchedda, Piero Conforti, Christophe Duhamel, Adrienne Egger, Laura Galeotti, Chiara Gnetti, Amanda Gordon, Leman Yonca Gürbüzer, Dominique Habimana, Anne Kepple, Irina Kovrova, Eun Jeong Lee, Xinman Liu, Livia Lombardi, Jeannie Marshall, Patricia Mejias Moreno, Elisa Miccinilli, Jean-Marie Munyeshyaka, Griffiths Obli Laryea, Ashley Steel, Kimberly Sullivan, Salar Tayyib, Francesco Tubiello, Monica Umena, Stefania Vannuccini, Sara Viviani, Michele Vollaro, Sven Walter, Nathan Wanner and Firas Yassin.
The Statistical Yearbook 2022 is divided into four thematic chapters:
• Chapter 1 (Economic dimensions of agriculture) provides an overview of agriculture, forestry and fishing from an economic standpoint.
• Chapter 2 (Production, trade and prices of commodities) presents the outputs of the sector in terms of the production and trade of the different commodities and the evolution of prices.
• Chapter 3 (Food security and nutrition) looks at how some of these outputs are consumed by narrowing the focus on food security and nutrition.
• Chapter 4 (Sustainability and environmental aspects of agriculture) deals with the impacts of the sector as a whole on the environment.
Each chapter draws on the latest available data to describe through text and charts the trends since the early 2000s. As data on each topic are produced according to different schedules and with different methods and sources, the latest year available can change between sections.
The country classification adopted in this publication is based on the United Nations M49 classification (https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/). The country names have been abbreviated in the data tables and figures. The official Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) names can be found at http://www.fao.org/nocs/en.
Regional and subregional aggregates are based on the country groupings defined in the United Nations M49 classification. A small subset of indicators used in Part 3 is based on the aggregation rules defined in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 report, which can be found at https://doi.org/10.4060/cc0639en.
Two types of aggregations are used: sum and weighted mean. A sufficiency condition is imposed when computing the aggregation – the aggregation is computed only when enough countries have reported data, and the current threshold is set at 50 percent of the variable and the weighting variable, if present.
The cut-off date for the data is 6 October 2022.
• When country data have not been reported for the reference year, an asterisk (*) on the year label indicates that the value for the most recent year available is shown. For example, 2018–2020* means that the most recent value for the period from 2018 to 2020 is shown.
• A billion is 1 000 million.
• A trillion is 1 000 billion.
• In data tables:
• A blank means that data are not available or that aggregates cannot be calculated because of missing data for the years shown.
• 0 or 0.0 means zero or a number that is small enough to round to zero at the displayed number of decimal places.
• <2.5 means a proportion less than 2.5 percent.
• <0.1 means less than 100 000 people.
1. Value added of agriculture, forestry and fishing by region
2. Share of agriculture, forestry and fishing value added in total GDP by region (USD 2015 prices)
3. World agricultural land by use
5. World agricultural land by use and main countries (2020)
6. Cropland area per capita by region
7. Area equipped for irrigation by region
8. Share of area equipped for irrigation in AGRICULTURAL land area by region
9. Share of water withdrawal by agriculture in total withdrawal, top countries (2019)
10. Employment in agriculture, forestry and fishing by region
11. Share of agriculture, forestry and fishing employment in total employment by region
12. Share of women in agriculture, forestry and fishing employment, top countries (2021)
16. Pesticide use per cropland area by region
17. Inorganic fertilizer use by region
18. Inorganic fertilizer use by nutrient and region
19. Inorganic fertilizer use per cropland area by nutrient and region
B2. Fertilizer import dependency, top net importers (2021)
20. World production of crops by commodity group
21. World production of crops, main commodities
22. World production of main primary crops by main producers (2020)
23. World production of vegetable oils, main commodities
24. World production of main vegetable oils by main producers (2019)
25. World production of raw sugar, main producers
26. World production of meat, main items
27. World production of main meat items, main producers (2020)
29. World production of hen eggs
30. World capture fisheries and aquaculture production by species group
31. World capture fisheries and aquaculture production by production mode
32. World capture fisheries and aquaculture production by main producers (2020)
33. World production of roundwood by type
34. World production of roundwood by type, main producers (2020)
35. World production of selected forest products
36. Value of world food exports by group
38. Food imports and exports by main groups and region (2020)
39. World exports of cereals by main commodities
40. Main traded cereals, top importers and exporters (quantities, 2020)
B3. Wheat import dependency, top net importers (2021)
41. Value of world forest product exports
42. FAO Food Price Index, world (2014–2016=100)
43. FAO food commodity price indices, world (2014–2016=100)
44. FAO FISH PRICE INDEX, WORLD (2014–2016=100)
45. Annual changes in prices received by farmers, top and bottom countries (2021)
46. Inflation in food consumer prices by region
47. Prevalence of undernourishment by region
48. Number of people undernourished by region
49. Food insecurity levels based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale by region
50. Food insecurity levels by region and sex (2021)
51. Average dietary energy supply by region
52. Cereal import dependency ratio, top countries (2017–2019)
53. Dietary energy supply by region and commodity group
54. Average protein supply by region and origin
55. Average dietary supply adequacy by region
56. Prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years by region
57. Prevalence of obesity in the adult population by region
58. Prevalence of obesity in the adult population, top countries (2016)
59. Share of land area by type and region
60. Share of forest area in total land area, top countries (2020)
61. World primary crops harvested area by commodity group
62. World area under organic agriculture, main countries (2020)
63. Share of area under organic agriculture in total agricultural area, top countries (2020)
64. Water stress, top countries (2019)
65. Cropland nitrogen budget by component and region
66. World greenhouse gas emissions on agricultural land
B4. Share of agrifood systems in total greenhouse gas emissions by region
67. World farm-gate greenhouse gas emissions by activity
68. World emissions intensity of agricultural commodities (2017)
69. Temperature change measured over land by region
1. Value added of agriculture, forestry and fishing (USD million, 2015 prices)
2. Share of agriculture, forestry and fishing value added in total GDP (USD 2015 prices) (percent)
3. Agricultural land by use (thousand ha)
4. Cropland area per capita (ha per capita)
5. Area equipped for irrigation (thousand ha)
6. Share of area equipped for irrigation in AGRICULTURAL land (percent)
7. Share of water withdrawal by agriculture in total withdrawal (percent)
8. Employment in agriculture, forestry and fishing (thousand people)
9. Share of agriculture, forestry and fishing employment in total employment (percent)
10. Share of women in agriculture, forestry and fishing employment (percent)
14. Pesticide use per cropland area (kg per ha)
15. Inorganic fertilizer use by nutrient (thousand tonnes)
16. Inorganic fertilizer use per cropland area by nutrient (kg per ha)
17. Production of primary crops by group, 2020 (thousand tonnes)
18. Production value of primary crops by group, 2020 (USD million, 2014–2016 prices)
19. Production of primary crops main commodities, 2020 (thousand tonnes)
20. Production of vegetable oils main commodities (thousand tonnes)
21. Production of raw sugar (thousand tonnes)
22. Production of meat (thousand tonnes)
23. Production of milk (thousand tonnes)
24. Production of hen eggs (thousand tonnes)
25. Capture fisheries and aquaculture production, 2020 (thousand tonnes)
26. Capture fisheries and aquaculture production by mode (thousand tonnes)
27. Production of roundwood by type (thousand m3)
28. Production of selected forest products, 2020
29. Food exports, 2020 (USD million)
30. Food net trade (USD million)
31. Food imports, 2020 (USD million)
32. Cereals exports (thousand tonnes)
33. Cereals imports and exports by main commodities, 2020 (thousand tonnes)
34. Forest products exports, 2020 (USD million)
35. FAO food price indices (2014–2016=100)
36. Annual changes in prices received by farmers (percent)
37. Inflation in food consumer prices (percent)
38. Prevalence of undernourishment (percent)
39. People undernourished (million)
40. Food insecurity levels (percent)
41. Food insecurity levels by sex (percent)
42. Average dietary energy supply (kcal per capita per day)
43. Cereal import dependency ratio (percent)
44. Dietary energy supply by commodity group, 2019 (kcal per capita per day)
45. Average protein supply by origin (g per capita per day)
46. Average dietary supply adequacy (percent)
47. Prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years (percent)
48. Prevalence of obesity in the adult population (percent)
49. Land area by type (thousand ha)
50. Share of forest area in total land area (percent)
51. Primary crops harvested area by commodity group, 2020 (thousand ha)
52. Area under organic agriculture (thousand ha)
53. Share of area under organic agriculture in total agricultural area (percent)
55. Cropland nutrient budget (kg per ha)
56. Greenhouse gas emissions on agricultural land, 2020 (million tonnes CO2eq)
57. Farm-gate greenhouse gas emissions by activity, 2020 (million tonnes CO2eq)
58. Emissions intensity of agricultural commodities, 2020 (kg CO2eq per kg)
59. Temperature change measured over land (degree Celsius)
1. Value added of agriculture, forestry and fishing by region (2020)
2. Share of agriculture, forestry and fishing value added in total GDP (2020, USD 2015 prices)
3. Employment in agriculture, forestry and fishing (2021)
4. Share of agriculture, forestry and fishing employment in total employment (2021)
8. Inorganic fertilizer use (2020)
9. Production of cereals (2020)
10. Production of sugar cane (2020)
11. Production of maize (2020)
12. Production of wheat (2020)
14. Production of oil palm fruit (2020)
15. Production of potatoes (2020)
16. Production of chicken meat (2020)
17. Production of PIG meat (2020)
18. Production of cattle meat (2020)
20. capture fisheries and aquaculture production (2020)
21. Aquaculture production (2020)
22. Importers and exporters of forest products (2020)
23. Importers and exporters of food (2020)
24. Inflation in food consumer prices (2021 average)
25. Prevalence of undernourishment (2019–2021 average)
26. Number of undernourished people (2019–2021 average)
27. Prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years (2020)
28. Prevalence of obesity in the adult population (2016)
29. Share of forest area in land area (2020)
30. Total renewable water resources per capita (2019)
32. Greenhouse gas emissions on agricultural land (2020)
1. Focus on agrifood systems – industry decomposition of food expenditures
2. Focus on the impact of the war in Ukraine on global food security – fertilizers trade
3. Focus on the impact of the war in Ukraine on global food security – wheat trade
4. Focus on agrifood systems – share in greenhouse gas emissions
The global value added generated by agriculture, forestry and fishinga grew by 78 percent in real terms between 2000 and 2020, reaching USD 3.6 trillion in 2020 (see FIGURE 1). This represents an increase of USD 1.6 trillion compared with 2000. In Africa, the value added more than doubled over the period (+147 percent), increasing from USD 167 billion to USD 413 billion. Given its size, Asia was the main contributor to global agriculture, forestry and fishing value added with 64 percent of the world total in 2020: the continent shows an increase of 91 percent, from USD 1.2 trillion in 2000 to USD 2.3 trillion in 2020. In the Americas, the increase reached 56 percent in the 2000–2020 period, while Europe and Oceania increased their agricultural value added by just 19 and 18 percent. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the value added of agriculture increased in 2020 for the world as a whole and all the regions except Europe. The countries with the largest agriculture, forestry and fishing sector in terms of value added in 2020 are China, India and the United States of America (see TABLE 1).
Until 2019, the global contribution of agriculture to gross domestic product (GDP) declined, which is expected to accompany the growth of total GDP. Due to the pandemic and the various restrictions put in place to contain it in 2020, the value added of the industry and services sectors declined while that of agriculture kept increasing, resulting in an artificial jump of the share of agriculture in the total in 2020 (see FIGURE 2). The share of value added from agriculture, forestry and fishing fell between 2000 and 2019 in all regions except Africa and the Americas, then increased between 2019 and 2020: from 1.8 percent in 2000 to 1.6 percent in 2019 and 1.7 percent in 2020 in Europe, from 10.1 percent to 7.1 percent and 7.4 percent in Asia, and from 3.9 percent to 2.4 percent and 2.7 percent in Oceania. It remained virtually unchanged in the Americas at around 1.8 percent between 2000 and 2019 and reached 1.9 percent in 2020. It rose in Africa from 14.5 percent in 2000 to 15.3 percent in 2019 and 16.2 percent in 2020. This increase, which is seldom observed, is due to a higher contribution of agriculture to GDP, largely related to the COVID-19 pandemic, in a number of countries – Algeria, Angola, Benin, Chad, the Comoros, the Congo, Eritrea, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, the Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo and Tunisia. These countries accounted for about half the total value added from agriculture, forestry and fishing in Africa in 2020 (see TABLE 2). Despite its relatively small economic size, the sector plays a crucial role in the agro-industry value chain and in the use of natural resources. As such, agriculture affects the quality of the environment and food security beyond what its contribution to GDP indicates.
New work by FAO in cooperation with Cornell University aims to shed light on the distribution of national final consumption expenditures on food among the different food value chain industries (agriculture, processing, wholesale and retail distribution). This effort looks at both the farm and the post-farm gate agrifood dimensions of different food value chains. Over the 2005–2015 period, wholesale and retail trade accounted on average in all countries for roughly half the total food expenditures for the Food At Home and Food and Tobacco At Home value chains, with manufacturing of food representing around one-quarter and agriculture around one-fifth. For the Food and Accommodation Away From Home value chain, accommodation and food service activities represented on average two-thirds of the total food expenditures, which significantly reduced the share of the other sectors, with agriculture accounting for only 7 percent. Furthermore, there is a strong correlation (R² = 0.81) in this value chain between the share of agriculture in food expenditures and the share of agriculture, forestry and fishing value added in GDP, as shown in FIGURE B1.
In 2020, the global agricultural land area was 4.74 billion hectares (ha), down 3 percent, or 0.13 billion ha compared with 2000 (see FIGURE 3 and TABLE 3). Between 2000 and 2020, roughly two-thirds of agricultural land were used for permanent meadows and pastures (3.18 billion ha in 2020), which declined by 6 percent (0.2 billion ha). One-third of the total agricultural land was cropland (1.56 billion ha in 2020), which increased by 5 percent (0.07 billion ha). Although agricultural land decreased since 2000, it increased on average by 0.1 percent each year over the 1961–2020 period, with a significant expansion up to the 1990s.1
The regional breakdown of the global cropland area varied marginally between 2000 and 2020 (see FIGURE 4). Asia had the largest share of the global cropland area in 2020 (38 percent), followed by the Americas (24 percent), Europe (18 percent), Africa (18 percent) and Oceania (2 percent). Nonetheless, there were differences in cropland expansion in the different regions during this period – Oceania and Africa both had rapid growth in cropland area (24 percent and 23 percent, respectively), while Asia had more moderate growth (5 percent). The cropland area of the Americas and Europe declined between 2000 and 2020, by 0.8 and 5 percent, respectively.
Approximately 30 percent of global cropland and permanent meadows and pastures can be found in three countries (see FIGURE 5), wich are not necessarily the ones with the largest country area.b In 2020, 12 percent of global permanent meadows and pastures belonged to China, 10 percent to Australia, and 8 percent to the United States of America. For the same year, the largest share of global cropland was in India (11 percent), followed by the United States of America (10 percent) and China (9 percent). Extensive grasslands versus croplands in agricultural land can indicate intensified livestock practices as opposed to harvesting crops.
Cropland area per capita decreased in all regions between 2000 and 2020 as population increased faster than the cropland area (see FIGURE 6). The world average declined by 18 percent to 0.20 ha per capita in 2020; the decrease was the largest in Africa (-26 percent, to 0.21 ha per capita), followed by the Americas (-19 percent, to 0.36 ha per capita), Asia (-15 percent, to 0.13 ha per capita), Oceania (-9 percent, to 0.78 ha per capita) and Europe (-8 percent, to 0.39 ha per capita). Against this backdrop, the increase in agricultural production over the same period (described in Chapter 2) indicates higher efficiency in feeding the population with limited land resources. The countries with the highest cropland area per capita are Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada (see TABLE 4), due to vast areas of land available over sparsely populated areas. Other reasons for high values include the intense use of agricultural inputs over cropland and dependencies on agricultural imports or food aid.
The development of irrigation is one aspect of agriculture intensification that has allowed total production to grow much faster than the cultivated area.
The global land area equipped for irrigation reached 349 million ha in 2020 (see FIGURE 7), an increase of 20 percent from the 289 million ha of 2000 and more than twice the 1960s land area equipped for irrigation.2 The vast majority is located in Asia (70 percent), where irrigation was a key component of the green revolution;3 the Americas account for 16 percent and Europe for 8 percent of the world total. As shown in TABLE 5, China (75 million ha) and India (73 million ha) have the largest equipped area for irrigation, far ahead of the United States of America (27 million ha). China and India also have the largest net gains in equipped area between 2000 and 2020 (+21 million ha for China and +12 million ha for India). All the regions except Europe saw increases in the area equipped for irrigation, with Africa growing the fastest (+28 percent), followed by Oceania (+23 percent), Asia (+23 percent) and the Americas (+19 percent).
The share of the area equipped for irrigation in agricultural land increased to 7.3 percent in 2020, up 1.4 percentage points compared with 2000 (see FIGURE 8). It increased in all regions, with the larger gains located in Asia, as described above. The higher levels in Asia compared to the rest of the world are partly attributable to the prevalence of irrigation-intensive rice cultivation in the region. As seen in TABLE 6, Egypt stands out as the country with the highest share of equipped area for irrigation (98.9 percent in 2020), as the agricultural land is concentrated in the Nile valley and delta.4 Countries with low shares are more dependent on rainfed agriculture, which is affected by changing rain patterns and tends to be more extensive than irrigated agriculture. On the other hand, irrigated agriculture competes with other uses of the water resources available in countries.
The share of agricultural water withdrawals in total withdrawals is an indication of the relative weight of agricultural water uses compared to the industrial and municipal ones. As seen FIGURE 9, the countries with the highest shares are located mostly in Africa and Asia, with the share of Somalia above 99 percent. One trait shared by most of these countries is the income level: out of the top 20 countries, the World Bank classifies 6 as low-income and 11 as lower-middle income while the remaining 3 belong to the upper-middle income group.5 In 2019, the share of agricultural water withdrawals in total withdrawals was greater than 90 percent in 30 countries (see TABLE 7).
The number of people working in agriculture worldwide, including forestry and fishing, went down 17 percent in the 2000–2021 period, reaching 866 million in 2021, or 177 million less than in 2000 (see FIGURE 10). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen in the values of 2020 and 2021: the decline between 2019 and 2020 was sharper than the average of the previous years due to the restrictions and the decline in activity, while the rebound experienced in 2021 translated into an increase of employment in agriculture of 10 million people (with increases in Africa, the Americas and Asia, and decreases in Europe and Oceania).c Between 2000 and 2021, agricultural employment has declined from approximately 800 million people to roughly 580 million in Asia: this means that more than one out of every four agricultural workers has left the sector for another job outside agriculture in the region. The biggest drop was observed in Europe, as agricultural employment there has decreased by 49 percent from about 35 million, which represents a decrease of 17 million people. During the same period, even if the share of employment in agriculture declined in Africa (see FIGURE 11), agricultural employment increased to 226 million people in 2021. With around 190 million people working in each of India and China in agriculture, together they accounted for two-thirds of agricultural employment in Asia and 44 percent of global agricultural employment in 2021 – even though 27 million people left the agriculture sector between 2000 and 2021 in India and 173 million in China (see TABLE 8).
The share of employment in agriculture, forestry and fishing declined globally by about 13 percentage points between 2000 and 2021, to 26.6 percent (see FIGURE 11). Yet, agriculture remains the second largest source of employment worldwide after the services sector.6 A decline in the share of the agricultural sector is usually linked to growing income levels, which explains the drop in the share of employment in agriculture across all regions and nearly all the countries (see TABLE 9). The COVID-19 pandemic broke this overall declining trend in 2020: while employment dropped in all sectors due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the industry and services sector were much more affected than agriculture, resulting in an increase of the share of agricultural employment in all regions except Europe between 2019 and 2020, followed by a decline in 2021. The lowest share of employment in agriculture was observed in Europe in 2021, where only 5.1 percent of the employed population had a job in agriculture. The highest share was observed in Africa with 48.4 percent of the total employed population.
FIGURE 12 shows the countries with the highest shares of women in agricultural employment. While on average women represented 37.1 percent of all agricultural workers in 2021, this share is above 50 percent in 20 countries (see TABLE 10), most of them in Africa. Women and men working in agriculture might have different employment status. Generally, the women employed in agriculture are more likely to be engaged as contributing family workers whereas men are more likely to be engaged on their own account as workers generating an income.7 In addition, women often spend more time than men on activities such as food processing and food preparation for the household, child and elder care, water and fuel collection and other unpaid household duties.8
Capital in the agriculture sector includes the machinery, equipment and tools as well as the farm buildings, and is essential in the production of all agricultural outputs. The gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) is an indication of the amounts that are reinvested in new fixed assets that are part of capital.
High-income countries tend to devote a higher share of their agriculture value added to reinvestments in the sector than countries with lower levels of income (see FIGURE 13 and TABLE 11). The three countries with the higher share of GFCF in value added in 2021 are all in Europe: Latvia (77 percent), Belgium (76 percent) and Estonia (57 percent). The leaders of the other regions had much lower shares: 34 percent for Australia, 26 percent for the United States of America and Japan, and 20 percent for South Africa.
Government spending on agriculture is a measure of the public financial support to the sector and complements investments made by the private sector. Asia and Africa had the highest percentage of central government spending on agriculture between 2000 and 2020.9 FIGURE 14 and TABLE 12 reflect this, as most of the countries with the highest shares are in these two regions, with Bhutan (11.8 percent), Mali (9.2 percent), and Samoa (7.4 percent) as the top three countries. In the case of Africa, signatories to the Malabo Declaration of 2014 committed to allocate at least 10 percent of government expenditures to agriculture.10
Global pesticides use increased during the period 2000–2020 by 30 percent, to 2.7 million tonnes in 2020 (see FIGURE 15). Nearly all the increase took place between 2000 and 2012, with a plateau until 2017 and a small decline afterwards. The highest contributions came from the Americas, followed by Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania.d The share of the Americas, the largest contributor, increased from 44 percent to 51 percent of global pesticides consumption while that of Asia and Europe decreased by 4–5 percentage points to 25 percent and 18 percent, respectively. Africa and Oceania applied small amounts of pesticides over time, but Oceania nonetheless had the highest growth in pesticides applications (+86 percent). As shown in TABLE 13, the United States of America was the largest pesticide user in 2020 with 0.41 million tonnes, or 15 percent of the world total, slightly ahead of Brazil (0.38 million tonnes) and China (0.27 million tonnes).
Global pesticides use per cropland area went up 25 percent in the 2000s, from 1.5 kg/ha to 1.8 kg/ha and levelled out after 2010 (see FIGURE 16), although with some important regional differences. Pesticides application rates in 2020 were highest in the Americas by far, followed by Oceania, Europe, Asia and Africa. By the end of the 2010s, Oceania surpassed both Europe and the global average. Asia was the only region where pesticides use per cropland area did not increase between 2010 and 2020. The top three countries in terms of pesticides application rate for 2020 were Saint Lucia, with 20 kg/ha, Maldives, with 17 kg/ha and Oman, with 16 kg/ha (see TABLE 14).
Total agricultural use of inorganic fertilizers, expressed as the sum of the three nutrients nitrogen (N), phosphorus (expressed as P2O5) and potassium (expressed as K2O), was 201 million tonnes in 2020. As shown in FIGURE 17, the breakdown was 113 million tonnes of nitrogen (56 percent of the total), 48 million tonnes of phosphorus (24 percent) and 39 million tonnes of potassium (20 percent). The overall fertilizer use in 2020 was 66 million tonnes, or 49 percent, higher than in 2000 (40 percent higher for nitrogen, 49 percent higher for phosphorus and 81 percent higher for potassium).
Asia represented 55 percent of world total agricultural use of inorganic fertilizers in 2020, followed by the Americas (27 percent), Europe (12 percent), Africa (4 percent) and Oceania (2 percent). This ranking of the regions is the same for all nutrients. The main users of inorganic fertilizers are, in descending order, China, India, Brazil and the United States of America (see TABLE 15), with China the largest user of each nutrient.
Fertilizer use increased in all regions between 2000 and 2020 (see FIGURE 18). The total for the three nutrients went up 38 million tonnes – the largest increase in absolute terms – in Asia, or 53 percent. The fastest increase took place in Africa, with a growth of 86 percent equivalent to just 3 million tonnes due to the low starting level. In the Americas, fertilizer use posted a 63 percent increase, or 21 million tonnes, while in Oceania it went up 13 percent (or 0.4 million tonnes) compared to 10 percent in Europe (or 2.3 million tonnes).
The mix of nutrients varies across the regions. Nitrogen is the dominant nutrient, accounting for around 60 percent of fertilizer use in Europe (63 percent), Africa (62 percent) and Asia (59 percent), and around half of the total in Oceania (52 percent) and the Americas (47 percent). The use of phosphorus accounts for 18 to 27 percent of the total in all the regions except Oceania, where its share is 36 percent. The share of potassium in fertilizer use is the highest in the Americas with 26 percent, followed by Europe (19 percent), Asia (17 percent), Africa (14 percent) and Oceania (12 percent). The use of phosphorus declined in Oceania between 2000 and 2020, while the use of potassium declined in Europe over the same period.
World agricultural use of inorganic fertilizers per cropland area rose by 43 percent during the 2000–2020 period, to 129 kg of nutrients per hectare – expressed as the sum of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (see FIGURE 19). This corresponds to an increase of 39 kg/ha compared with 2000. Of the total amount, 73 kg/ha correspond to nitrogen (up 34 percent), 31 kg/ha to phosphorus (up 43 percent) and 25 kg/ha to potassium (up 74 percent).
Fertilizer use per cropland area in 2020 was the highest in Asia, at 187 kg/ha, followed by the Americas (151 kg/ha), Europe (83 kg/ha), Oceania (82 kg/ha) and Africa (26 kg/ha), as shown on FIGURE 19 and TABLE 16. With a growth rate of 64 percent between 2000 and 2020, the Americas was the region with the fastest increase in fertilizer use per cropland area, ahead of Africa (+53 percent), Asia (+46 percent) and Europe (+16 percent) – Oceania is the only region showing a decrease (-12 percent).
The Russian Federation is one of the top producers and exporters of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. The price of fertilizers went up in 2021 (with prices of urea, a key N fertilizer, multiplied by almost four at the end of 2022 compared with 2020), due to increasing energy prices and transportation costs in the wake of the pandemic. The war in Ukraine disrupted exports, pushing prices further up and reducing the quantities available on the global market. This reduction is expected to contribute to increased food production costs and prices, possibly leading to a reduction in crop production in the coming years due to reduced fertilizers use. The most recent data show that 25 countries and the European Union sourced from the Russian Federation at least 20 percent of their fertilizers imports in 2021, with higher shares observed for countries in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa.
World production of primary crops increased by 52 percent between 2000 and 2020, to 9.3 billion tonnes, on level with the 2019 production (see FIGURE 20 and TABLE 17). This represents 3.2 billion tonnes more than in 2000. With slightly less than one-third of the total, cereals were the main group of crops produced in 2020, followed by sugar crops (23 percent), vegetables and oil crops (12 percent each). Fruit, and roots and tubers each accounted for 9–10 percent of the total production. The increase in production is mostly attributable to a combination of factors seen in Chapter 1 (increased use of irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers, and to a lesser extent a larger cultivated area); other factors such as better farming practices11 and the use of high-yield crops12 also play a role.
The value of primary crops production increased at roughly the same pace in real terms as the quantities produced (53 percent), from USD 1.8 trillion in 2000 to USD 2.7 trillion in 2020. While the share of cereals in the total production value was almost the same as in the total quantities during the whole period, the rest of the breakdown was very different. Vegetables accounted for 20 percent of the total value in 2020, followed by fruit (17 percent) and roots and tubers (7 percent). Sugar crops and oil crops each represented 3–4 percent of the total value: such a discrepancy with the share of the quantities produced is due to differences in price compared to fruit and vegetables, and to the fact that the transformation of these commodities into refined products (sugar and vegetable oils) is adding the most value. While a large number of crops are cultivated and harvested around the world, just four individual crops accounted for half the global production of primary crops in 2020: sugar cane (20 percent of the total, with 1.9 billion tonnes), maize (12 percent, with 1.2 billion tonnes), wheat and rice (8 percent each, with 0.8 billion tonnes) – see FIGURE 21. Oil palm fruit and potatoes each accounted for an additional 4 percent of world crop production.
Sugar cane accounted for around 21 percent of the global crop production over the 2000–2020 period. While maize, wheat and rice each represented 10 percent of the total in 2000, maize production grew three times faster than that of wheat or rice during the period, surpassing rice in 2001 to become the second most produced crop worldwide. As seen in TABLE 19, the Americas was the leading region in the production of sugar cane (54 percent of the world total) and maize (50 percent) in 2020, while Asia led in the production of rice (89 percent), oil palm fruit (89 percent), potatoes (50 percent) and wheat (46 percent).
FIGURE 22 shows that for each main crop commodity, the top three producers combined account for a significant share of the world total: slightly above 40 percent for wheat and potatoes, around 60 to 66 percent for sugar cane, maize and rice, and close to 90 percent for oil palm fruit in 2020. For each crop, the top producer also has a sizeable share of the global output: in 2020, Brazil accounted for 40 percent of world sugar cane production, the United States of America grew 31 percent of the global production for maize, China (which ranked in the top three producers for five out of the six main crop commodities) produced about 25 percent of the world output of rice and potatoes, and 18 percent of the world output of wheat, while 61 percent of oil palm fruit production originated in Indonesia. Such a concentration can have a large impact on prices when harvests are affected – either positively or negatively – in the main producing countries that export part of their production.
Most primary crops can be consumed unprocessed, but two crop groups in particular require processing for the production of commodities used both as food and fuel: oil crops and sugar crops. Therefore, they have an impact on nutrition and health, but also on energy and the environment.
The global production of vegetable oils went up 125 percent between 2000 and 2019, to 208 million tonnes in 2019 (see FIGURE 23 and TABLE 20). This is 115 million tonnes more than in 2000. Palm oil registered the largest increase, both absolute and relative, as its production went up 52 million tonnes, or 236 percent; it overtook soybean oil as the main vegetable oil produced in 2006. The use of palm oil for biodiesel explains most of this spectacular growth.13 The other main vegetable oils produced in 2019 are rapeseed oil, accounting for 12 percent of global vegetable oil production (down from 15 percent in 2000), and sunflower oil, which accounted for 10 percent of total vegetable oil production (down from 11 percent in 2000).
As with primary crops, the production of the main vegetable oils is heavily concentrated in a handful of countries (see FIGURE 24). The concentration is highest with palm oil, as 84 percent of global production came from two countries in 2019: Indonesia (57 percent) and Malaysia (27 percent). This mirrors the shares of the top producers of oil palm fruit shown in FIGURE 22. In 2019, the top three producers accounted for 63–64 percent of the production of soybean oil and sunflower oil, and for 40 percent of the production of rapeseed oil. China was the main producer of soybean oil, with a share of 27 percent in 2019 and the United States of America a distant second with a share of 19 percent. The difference between the first and second producer was much smaller for rapeseed and sunflower oil: Canada led the production of rapeseed oil in 2019, with 17 percent of the world total, just ahead of China (13 percent), while Ukraine produced 29 percent of the global sunflower oil output in 2019, with the Russian Federation a close second (27 percent).
The global production of raw sugar reached 179 million tonnes in 2019, up 35 percent compared with 2000, or 47 million tonnes (see FIGURE 25 and TABLE 21). As sugar cane, the main sugar crop, grows in tropical regions, the main producing countries are located there. In 2019, the largest producing country was India, which increased its share in the world total from 15 percent in 2000 to 19 percent in 2019. Brazil, which was the top sugar producer between 2002 and 2017, saw its sugar production drop in 2018 due to dry weather and higher ethanol prices that make producing sugar less profitable. The other main producers each accounted for 3 to 8 percent of the total production in 2019, with the Russian Federation relying only on sugar beet for sugar production.
World meat production reached 337 million tonnes in 2020, up 45 percent, or 104 million tonnes compared with 2000 (see FIGURE 26). Although many species are raised for their meat, only three accounted for nearly 90 percent of the global production during the 2000–2020 period: chicken, pig and cattle (not taking into account the different breeds for each). With 35 percent of the global production in 2020, chicken meat showed the largest growth in absolute and relative terms since 2000 (+104 percent, or 61 million tonnes) and was the most produced type of meat in 2020. Pig meat represented 33 percent of the total in 2020, compared to 39 percent in 2000. African swine fever started affecting Asian countries in late 2018 and continued in 2019 and 2020. It resulted in an 11 million tonnes decrease in world pig meat production between 2018 and 2019, with China being hardest hit, and kept constraining production in 2020. The share of cattle meat dropped from 24 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2020.
The market concentration of meat production is not as strong as for primary crops and vegetable oils, even though the top three producers accounted for 55 percent of world pig meat production and 42 percent of global chicken and cattle meat production in 2020 (see FIGURE 27 and TABLE 21). China and the United States of America are among the three largest producers for each main meat type: in particular, China alone accounted for 38 percent of world pig meat in 2020, and the United States of America produced 17 to 18 percent of world chicken and cattle meat. The difference between the two countries is that meat production in China is mostly for the domestic market, whereas a significant share of American meat production (especially in the case of chicken) is exported.14
World milk production rose by 53 percent to 887 million tonnes in 2020, an increase of 307 million tonnes compared with 2000 (see FIGURE 28). Asia was the largest milk-producing region in 2020 with a 42 percent share of the total, ahead of Europe (26 percent), the Americas (22 percent), Africa (6 percent) and Oceania (3 percent). In particular, milk production in Asia went up 120 percent between 2000 and 2020, from 170 million tonnes to 374 million tonnes mostly due to the increase in India (104 million tonnes), which was the largest producer with a 21 percent share of the global total in 2020. With an 11 percent share, the United States of America was the second largest producer; the other main producers (Pakistan, China, Brazil, Germany, the Russian Federation and France) each accounted for 3 to 7 percent of the global production. The combined share of the top three milk producers was 39 percent of the total, the same as in 2019 (see TABLE 23).
In 2020, world hen eggs production reached 87 million tonnes, a 69 percent increase from the 2000 level, which translates into an additional 36 million tonnes over the period (see FIGURE 29). Asia was by far the main producing region, accounting for 62 percent of the global production in 2020, followed by the Americas (20 percent), Europe (13 percent), Africa (4 percent) and Oceania (0.4 percent). Production growth rates were well above 65 percent in all the regions but Europe, where it grew by just 18 percent (see TABLE 24); as a result, its share in the world total dropped from 18 percent to 13 percent. With 35 percent of the total, China ranked as the largest hen egg producing country; the other main producers (the United States of America, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan and the Russian Federation) combined did not surpass it. Together, the top three producers accounted for nearly half the global hen eggs production in 2020.
Excluding algae, total world fisheries and aquaculture production showed a 41 percent growth in the 2000–2020 period, reaching 178 million tonnes in 2020, slightly below the record 179 million tonnes of 2018. This represents an overall expansion of 52 million tonnes compared to 2000. In 2020, the total fisheries and aquaculture production (excluding algae) rose slightly (+0.2 percent) compared with 2019 but was down 0.7 percent from the record high reached in 2018.
A large number of species are harvested every year, with the quantities and specific species varying from country to country. Finfish (freshwater, diadromous and marine fish) had a share of 76 percent of the total in 2020, with a slight decline compared to 79 percent in 2000. With 39 percent of the total, marine fish were the main group of species produced in 2020, followed by freshwater fish (33 percent), molluscs (13 percent) and crustaceans (10 percent) (see TABLE 25). Thanks to the expansion of aquaculture production, freshwater fish experienced major growth, more than doubling (+138 percent) between 2000 and 2020, going from about 25 million tonnes in 2000 (19 percent of the total) to 58 million tonnes in 2020 (33 percent of the total). Other major increases were experienced by crustaceans (+120 percent) and diadromous fish (+93 percent).
The significant expansion of the fisheries and aquaculture production came with many transformations, including changes in the source of production being increasingly dependent on aquaculture. In the last three decades, aquaculture has been the main driver of the increase in fisheries and aquaculture production, with an average growth of 5.1 percent per year in the period 2000–2020, reaching a record 87.5 million tonnes in 2020. At the global level, after several decades of sustained growth, capture fisheries production has been rather stable at around 90 million tonnes since the early 1990s, with some inter-annual fluctuations in the range of 3 to 6 million tonnes. These fluctuations have been mainly determined by variations in catches of anchoveta in South America, particularly affected by climatic change variability, but they also depended on the productivity of ecosystems, fishing intensity management and fish stock status. In 2020, capture fisheries production reached 90.3 million tonnes, down from its 2018 peak of 96.5 million tonnes, representing 51 percent of total production. Aquaculture accounted for 49 percent of the global total. Yet, its share in total production varied significantly across continents, going from over 62 percent in Asia in 2020 to 20 percent in the Americas, 19 percent in Europe and Africa and 13 percent in Oceania.
As seen in TABLE 26, Asia played a major role in the overall growth of fisheries and aquaculture production and represented about 70 percent of total production in 2020 compared to 57 percent in 2000. In 2020, the Americas had a share of 12 percent, followed by Europe (10 percent), Africa (7 percent) and Oceania (1 percent). China is by far the main producer for both capture fisheries and aquaculture, with a 36 percent share of the total production in 2020, compared with 30 percent in 2000. In 2020, other major producers were Indonesia and India, and these three countries together represented 51 percent of total fisheries and aquaculture production. These three countries were also the dominant producers for aquaculture, while for capture fisheries China and Indonesia were followed by Peru in 2020. The overall share of the top three producers was 73 percent of aquaculture and 29 percent of capture fisheries in 2020. Despite this concentration of production, aquaculture has experienced growth across the world, with the unequal rates reflecting differences in local policy, management objectives, site opportunities and environmental factors.
In addition, 36.2 million tonnes of algae were produced in 2020, the bulk of which (97 percent) originating from culture-based practices. If algae are included, the overall fisheries and aquaculture production reached 214 million tonnes in 2020, with aquaculture representing 57 percent of the total.
Global production of roundwood rose from 3.5 billion m3 in 2000 to 3.9 billion m3 in 2020, which represents a 12 percent increase over the period but a 3 percent decrease from the 2018 peak due to the decrease in industrial roundwood (see FIGURE 33). In 2020, wood fuel was the main product with a 49 percent share of the total (1.9 billion m3), followed by coniferous industrial roundwood with 29 percent (1.1 billion m3) and non-coniferous industrial roundwood with 21 percent (0.8 billion m3). In particular, the rebound has remained strong after the decline in coniferous industrial roundwood production in 2009, which resulted in the lowest total roundwood production during the 2000–2020 period. As seen in TABLE 27, Asia and the Americas are the two main producing regions, accounting for 30 and 27 percent of the total roundwood production, respectively; Africa and Europe have similar shares of 20–21 percent, while Oceania produces the remaining 2 percent.
The share of the combined three main producers of roundwood commodities in 2020 was roughly 30 percent for wood fuel, 40 percent for non-coniferous industrial roundwood and 50 percent for coniferous industrial roundwood (see FIGURE 34).
Many lower- and middle-income countries rely on wood for energy purposes (notably cooking). The largest producers are all in these income groups and have large populations with a high reliance on wood for energy: in 2020, India ranked first with 301 million m3 (16 percent of total production), followed by China with 157 million m3 and Brazil with 123 million m3 (respectively 8 percent and 6 percent of global production). TABLE 27 shows that five African countries are included in the top 10: Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda.
The main industrial roundwood producers are all countries with a large forest area and a well-established logging industry. In the case of coniferous industrial roundwood, the top producers in 2020 were the United States of America, with a production of 293 million m3 (26 percent of the total production), followed by the Russian Federation with 161 million m3 (14 percent) and Canada with 108 million m3 (9 percent). China led the production of non-coniferous industrial roundwood in 2020, with 152 million m3 (18 percent of the global production), followed by Brazil (101 million m3, or 12 percent) and Indonesia (83 million m3, or 10 percent).
FIGURE 35 and TABLE 28 show the production of the main products derived from wood. The production of paper and paperboard declined for the third consecutive year, reaching 401 million tonnes – a decrease of 3.4 percent over the 2017 production. Recovered paper production also continued to decline, with a production of 229 million tonnes in 2020 (-2.3 percent over the 2017 production). The pandemic contributed to changes in paper demand and production. Many activities such as education and news consumption were curtailed or moved online, reducing the demand for graphic papers; however, the increase in online shopping and shipping contributed to an increase in the demand and production of other paper and paperboard. These trends were already evident before the pandemic but appear to have been exacerbated in 2020. In total, between 2000 and 2020, paper and paperboard increased by 24 percent and recovered paper by 59 percent. Wood pulp production dropped by 3.2 percent to 186 million tonnes in 2020 compared to its 2018 peak, but it is still up 9 percent compared to 2000. The production of wood charcoal reached 53 million tonnes in 2020, up 45 percent from the 2000 level. Wood pellets and other agglomerates, for which data collection was started in 2012, show steady growth with a production record of 50 million tonnes in 2020, an increase of 116 percent since the 23 million tonnes produced in 2012. World production of sawnwood recovered strongly from its low point of 2009 but declined for the second year in a row from its 2018 record, to 473 million m3 in 2020, an increase of 23 percent compared with 2000. The production of wood-based panels, which had steadily increased since 2009, dipped slightly in 2020 compared to 2019; the 368 million m3 produced in 2020 still represent a 107 percent increase from the 2000 production.
The monetary value of global food exports multiplied by 3.7 in nominal terms between 2000 and 2020, from about USD 380 billion in 2000 to USD 1.42 trillion in 2020, with strong increases in all food commodity groups (see FIGURE 36). Fruit and vegetables accounted for 20 percent of the total value of food exports in 2020, followed by cereals and preparations (14 percent). Fish and meat each had a share of 10–11 percent. As seen in TABLE 29, the United States of America was the largest food exporter in 2020 with 9 percent of the total, followed by the Netherlands (6 percent) and China (5 percent).
In terms of food net trade, defined as the nominal value of exports minus that of imports, two regions stand out: the Americas as the largest net exporter with a USD 121 billion surplus in 2020, and Asia as the largest net importer, posting a USD 197 billion deficit in 2020 (see FIGURE 37). Oceania remained a net exporter of food during the 2000–2020 period and Africa a net importer. Europe was a net importer of food during most of the period but became a net exporter in 2013 and overtook Oceania in 2020. As seen in TABLE 30, the largest net exporting countries in 2020 are Brazil (+USD 63 billion), Argentina (+USD 23 billion) and Spain (+USD 22 billion). Looking at TABLE 29, Brazil derives a large share of its food exports from soybeans (included in the “Other food” category), Argentina from cereals and Spain from fruit and vegetables. The largest net importing countries are China (-USD 114 billion), Japan (-USD 50 billion) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (-USD 32 billion). TABLE 31 shows that meat accounts for the larger share of China’s and Japan’s food imports, while fruit and vegetables are the United Kingdom’s main food import.
Trade flows vary considerably between regions and commodity groups (see FIGURE 38). The largest individual flows are observed for fruit and vegetables, with Europe importing USD 138 billion and exporting USD 101 billion in 2020. Asia was the top importing region for cereals and preparations, fats and oils, meat and meat preparations, and sugar and honey; for beverages, dairy and eggs, fish and fruit and vegetables, the main importer was Europe. For all commodity groups but three, Europe was the main exporter; Asia led for fats and oils and fish, and the Americas led for sugar and honey. Meat and meat preparations and cereals and preparations are the commodity group with the largest net trade deficit and surplus, respectively: Asia’s trade deficit for meat was USD 59 billion, while Europe’s surplus for cereals was USD 37 billion. In 2020, Asia was a net importer of all commodity groups but fish, and Africa was a net importer of all commodity groups but fish, and fruit and vegetables. Oceania was a net exporter of all commodity groups in 2020. The Americas and Europe were net exporters of most groups, but each had significant net imports in one category: the Americas had a deficit of USD 17 billion for beverages and Europe had one of USD 37 billion for fruit and vegetables.
Looking at the quantities instead of the values traded gives a vastly different picture. In that case, cereals are by a wide margin the most traded commodity group, with exports reaching a record high of 492 million tonnes in 2020 (see FIGURE 39 and TABLE 32). This is 231 million tonnes, or 88 percent more than in 2000, and 42 million tonnes (9 percent) higher than the 2019 exports. In 2020, wheat became again the most exported cereal (40 percent), slightly ahead of maize (39 percent). Together with rice (9 percent), these three crops accounted for 89 percent of all exports in 2020, with the exports of maize growing much faster (+134 percent) than those of rice (+95 percent) and wheat (+69 percent) since 2000.
For each of the main traded cereals, exports tend to originate from a few countries while imports are more dispersed (see FIGURE 40).15 In 2020, the top three exporters accounted for significant shares of the total exports: 64 percent for maize, 57 percent for rice and 45 percent for wheat. In comparison, the top three importers accounted for 15 to 26 percent of the total imports for these commodities. The main producers tend to also feature among the main exporters. China stands out as a major producing country focusing on domestic demand since its exports are fairly small compared to its production TABLES 20 and 32); it is also the largest importer of rice.
The nominal value of global forest products exports declined in 2020 for the second consecutive year, to USD 226 billion. This represents an increase of USD 81 billion, or 56 percent, compared with 2000, but a decrease of USD 47 billion, or 17 percent, from the record high USD 273 billion of 2018 (see FIGURE 41 and TABLE 34). With 39 percent of the total value, paper and paperboard was the most traded commodity in 2020, even though its share has steadily declined from 48 percent in 2000. Sawnwood, wood-based panels and pulp for paper each represented 13 to 16 percent of the value of forestry exports in 2020, with small changes compared to their 2000 shares.
The Russian Federation and Ukraine are among the main producers and exporters of key agricultural commodities such as cereals – in particular wheat, maize and barley – and sunflower oil. Disruptions to Ukrainian production and exports, and to Russian exports, may compromise food security in countries sourcing imports from either of the belligerents, compounding the effects of increasing food prices. The most recent data show that 25 countries depended on the Russian Federation and Ukraine for at least 50 percent of their wheat imports in 2021 (with Eritrea at 100 percent, split almost evenly between the two). Countries in Africa and Western Asia appear especially vulnerable, even more so the Low-Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDC). Simulations suggest that the number of undernourished people in 2022 has increased by 7.6–13.1 million.16
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Food Price Index, which measures the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, consists of the average of five commodity group price indices (cereals, dairy, meat, oils and sugar), weighted with the average export shares of each of the groups for 2014–2016. Since January 2000, it went up 85.4 points to 138 points in August 2022 (see FIGURE 42 and TABLE 35).
The FAO Food Price Index spiked in 2007/2008 during the food security crisis that saw the price of cereals reach record levels, especially rice and wheat. Food prices soared again in late 2010 and early 2011 (especially sugar and dairy). Overall, the period of sustained high prices lasted much longer than in the previous commodity price booms and busts with the return to the pre-surge price levels only five years later, in January 2016. The FAO Food Price Index declined during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic reflecting uncertainties faced by commodity markets. However, it surged between May 2020 and March 2022 to 159.7 points, its highest value ever, due to a combination of factors including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chains, the rebound in activity and demand experienced in 2021, and the disruption to exports of cereals and vegetable oils from the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The FAO Food Price Index then declined for five consecutive months to 138 points – still above the level of 2007/2008 or 2011.
An important factor to note is that the overall trend of the FAO Food Price Index can mask a wide discrepancy of movements across sectors, as shown in FIGURE 43. The market fundamentals of supply and demand, as well as exchange rates dynamics, drive the evolution of international prices. The indices for vegetable oils, cereals and dairy show the largest increases since the beginning of 2019. The indices for oils and sugar also experienced a sharp drop during the first months of 2020 (as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted international food markets) followed by a doubling over the following 16 months. The indices for cereals and oils peaked in the first half of 2022, as the war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine reduced the exports from these key exporters of wheat and sunflower oil; the resumption of Ukrainian exports and better production prospects contributed to the drop in the indices until August 2022.
The FAO Fish Price Index measures the monthly changes in international prices of a basket of fisheries and aquaculture commodities. The index consists of the average of five commodity group price indices (whitefish, salmon, tuna, other pelagic fish and shrimps) weighted by the average export shares of each of the groups for the 2014–2016 period. Since January 2000, it went up from 65.5 to 119.6 points in August 2022. However, it did not grow gradually over time but showed several periods of expansion and contraction (see FIGURE 44). Being an average, the index masks wide differences among species and across the aquaculture and capture fisheries sector, in addition to the dynamics of supply and demand and exchange rates. Over the first eight months of 2022, the indices of all five commodity groups experienced an increase compared with the same period in 2021, with a brief peak between April and June 2022. However, the magnitude of these rises differed significantly across commodity groups, with the smallest increases observed for tuna and shrimp and the largest ones for whitefish and salmon.
At the country level, changes in domestic prices received by agricultural producers varied between -14 percent (in Saudi Arabia) and +29 percent (in Kuwait) in 2021 compared with 2020 (see FIGURE 45 and TABLE 36). The largest fluctuations, either up or down, often took place in Asia and Africa. Many factors can affect producer prices, including favourable or poor harvests compared to the previous year, production costs, market structure, subsidy schemes and external factors – as is the case, for instance, of economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2018. The characteristics of the food supply chain (including the transformation of goods and the incorporation of services along the chain) play a key role in shaping the transmission of price shocks between producers and consumers. They can explain different rates of change in producer prices compared to consumer prices.
The increase in consumer prices hit record high levels for all regions halfway through 2022, with steep increases since February 2022 (see FIGURE 46 and TABLE 37). While the world average fluctuated between 1.5 percent and 3.4 percent between January 2016 and the beginning of 2019, it then increased steadily to peak at 6.9 percent in April 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic started to affect the world economy. It then slowly decreased to 4.9 percent in April 2021, and steeply increased to 19.5 percent in June 2022. The inflation rate in Asia, which had remained below 6 percent until early 2021 except for a few months in 2019/2020, experienced a sharp increase from 5.6 percent in April 2021 to 25.8 percent in June 2022. Africa experienced the highest inflation rate in food prices for most of the period, fluctuating around 17–18 percent for ten months in 2017 and exceeding this level in June 2022 (20.5 percent). In the Americas, the inflation rate slowly increased from -0.5 percent in January 2017 to 5 percent in March 2020; it remained on a plateau around 8 percent for the following 12 months, then briefly declined and surged to 19.4 percent in June 2022. Europe and Oceania had similar trends, with inflation stable at low levels until the pandemic caused a brief increase, followed by months of slow decline and then a sustained increase starting in March/April 2021 to regional records in June 2022 (11.8 percent in Europe and 5.8 percent in Oceania).
After a decades-long decline and five years of relative stability since 2014, the global level of the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) has increased sharply between 2019 and 2020 and rose at a slower pace between 2020 and 2021, under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic (see FIGURE 47 and TABLE 38). Nearly 10 percent of the world population suffered from hunger in 2021, compared with 9.3 percent in 2020 and 8 percent in 2019. The situation is most alarming in Africa, where the PoU is the highest among all regions and has increased the most between 2019 and 2021 – by 2.8 percentage points. In 2021, 20.2 percent of the population in Africa were undernourished. The PoU in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was also increasing since 2014, went from 8 percent in 2020 to 8.6 percent in 2021. In Asia, the PoU has been mostly declining since 2002 and remained the second highest among all regions; the increase between 2020 and 2021 was just 0.5 percentage point, from 8.6 percent to 9.1 percent. The PoU in Oceania has stayed stable since 2014 at around 5.7 percent.
Between 702 and 828 million people in the world were still hungry in 2021. Considering the middle point of the projected range (almost 770 million), this is equivalent to 46 million additional people going hungry in one year and 150 million in two years (see FIGURE 48). While its PoU is the second highest, Asia is home to 55 percent of the world’s hungry people due to its large population base, and the two countries with the largest number of hungry people are in Asia (see TABLE 39). Even though the number of hungry people in Asia declined by 36 percent, or 187 million, between 2000 and 2019, it went up 85 million between 2019 and 2021 to 425 million – almost halving the decrease between 2000 and 2021, to 19 percent. In Africa, 278 million people were undernourished in 2021, an increase of 22 percent, or 51 million people, from 2019, and a 42 percent increase from 2000. By contrast, the hungry population in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 13 million, or 30 percent, from 2019, reaching 57 million in 2021, which is marginally higher than the 2000 value. The number of hungry people in Oceania increased by 14 percent, or 0.3 million people, during the 2000–2021 period, of which 0.2 million were added between 2020 and 2021.
In 2021, 11.7 percent of the world population (924 million people) were exposed to severe food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) (see FIGURE 49). The levels and trends over the 2014–2021 period are broadly consistent with those of the PoU, confirming that these two indicators complement each other as they both measure the extent of severe food deprivation. As one of the official Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity provides additional information on people who do not have regular access to nutritious and sufficient food, even if they are not necessarily suffering from hunger. In 2021, it is estimated that 17.6 percent of the world population, just under 1.4 billion people, have experienced food insecurity at moderate levels. This brings the total estimates for moderate or severe food insecurity in 2021 to 29.3 percent of the world population, or 2.3 billion people.
Similar to the PoU, moderate or severe food insecurity experienced a steep increase between 2019 and 2020 (equal to that of the previous five years combined) followed by a smaller one between 2020 and 2021.17 As seen in TABLE 40, moderate or severe food insecurity is much higher in Africa than in any other part of the world, affecting 57.9 percent of the population in 2021. This is followed by Latin America (40.6 percent), Asia (24.6 percent), Oceania (13 percent) and Northern America and Europe (8 percent).
FIES data collected by FAO since 2014 in more than 140 countries at the individual (rather than household) level provide a unique opportunity to produce gender-disaggregated estimates for the prevalence of food insecurity in the adult population. In Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern America and Europe, and the world as a whole, the prevalence of severe food insecurity and of moderate or severe food insecurity is slightly higher in adult women than in adult men – the differences being statistically significant. The largest differences are found in Latin America and the Caribbean (4.2 percentage points for severe food insecurity, and 11.3 percentage points for moderate or severe food insecurity).
The world average dietary energy supply (DES), measured as calories per capita per day, has been increasing steadily to around 2 960 kcal per person per day over the period from 2019 to 2021, up 9 percent compared with 2000 to 2002 (see FIGURE 51 and TABLE 42). It is the highest in Northern America and Europe at about 3 540 kcal per person per day; the gap with Oceania (around 3 110 kcal per person per day) and Latin America and the Caribbean (about 3 040 kcal per person per day), is substantial. The fastest increase took place in Asia where DES went up 14 percent over the last two decades. While the lowest among all regions, Africa has also witnessed a steady increase in DES that stopped in 2012–2014.
Given the importance of cereals as staple foods worldwide (see FIGURE 53) and the discrepancy between consumption and production in many countries, a measure of food security is the cereals imports dependency ratio, defined as the net trade of cereals (imports minus exports) divided by the total cereals supply in a country (the country’s own production plus the imports minus the exports). Among the most cereals import-dependent countries in the period from 2017 to 2019, the majority are small island developing states18 and countries in the Near East, where the natural conditions are not favourable to cereals production (see FIGURE 52 and TABLE 43).
The composition of the dietary energy supply, detailed in food balance sheets,19 varies greatly between the regions, with notable evolutions between 2000 and 2020 (see FIGURE 53 and TABLE 44). Cereals were the most important contributor to the dietary energy supply in all regions, with shares in 2020 ranging from 24 percent in Oceania to 50 percent in Asia. Fats and oils is the second major food group in all the regions but Africa. Regional specificities include the high share of roots, tubers and pulses in Africa, of sugar in the Americas and Oceania, and of fats and oils in Oceania, the Americas and Europe. Between 2000 and 2020, the most visible changes in the composition of the food supply took place in Asia (where the share of cereals dropped by 7 percentage points while that of fats and oils, meat, fruit and vegetables, and dairy and eggs increased significantly).
The average protein supply increased in all regions between 2000 and 2019 (see FIGURE 54 and TABLE 45). The growth in Oceania (20 percent), Africa and Asia (18 percent each) was much faster than the world average of 13 percent. The share of protein from animal origin went up across all regions except Oceania (as a consequence of the increased share of meat, fish, and dairy and eggs in diets observed in FIGURE 53): it is highest in Oceania (63 percent) and lowest in Africa (21 percent). Strong disparities also prevail between regions in terms of levels and composition. Protein supply was highest in Northern America and Europe in 2017–2019, with 106 g per person per day compared with 63 g per person per day for Africa – the primary reason for this is the difference in the availability of protein from animal-sourced foods. In 2017–2019, plants were the main source of protein in Africa (79 percent) and Asia (65 percent), but accounted for 48 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, 41 percent in Northern America and Europe, and 37 percent in Oceania.
The average dietary supply adequacy has been increasing steadily since the early 2000s in every region, with Northern America and Europe being the highest and Africa being the lowest (see FIGURE 55). In recent years, the average dietary supply adequacy in Africa remained unchanged or decreased because of the declining dietary energy supply in the region (see FIGURE 51).
Dietary supply adequacy divides a country’s average supply of calories for food consumption by the average dietary energy requirement estimated for its population, to measure the adequacy of food supply in terms of calories. Analysed together with the prevalence of undernourishment, it helps identify the cause of undernourishment as mainly due to insufficient food supply or to particularly bad distribution.
The prevalence of stunting among children under five years (as well as the number of stunted children) decreased worldwide from 33 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2020 (see FIGURE 56). The decrease took place in all regions, with the largest drop in Asia, from 37 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2020. However, this global progress may have disguised a starker situation in some parts of the world. As seen in TABLE 47, the prevalence of child stunting is still extremely high in some countries, sometimes reaching more than 50 percent. A majority of the countries with a high prevalence of stunting are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Obesity among adults of 18 years and above increased rapidly in every region of the world between 2000 and 2016 (see FIGURE 57). In 2016, 13.1 percent of the adult population in the world was obese, an increase from 8.7 percent in 2000. Oceania and Northern America and Europe had the highest prevalence of adult obesity (both at around 27–28 percent), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. The prevalence of adult obesity in Africa and Asia was lower than the world average, although it has been steadily increasing. Overall, the world is not on track to meet the 2025 target of the World Health Assembly to halt the rise in obesity.
The 20 countries with the highest prevalence of obesity among adults in 2016 were clustered in the Pacific Islands, the Near East and North Africa (see FIGURE 58). In all of them, 30 percent or more of the population is obese, with the highest proportion in Nauru at 61 percent. For many of these countries, multiple forms of malnutrition coexist: in Egypt, for example, the prevalence of child stunting was as high as 22.3 percent in 2020 (see TABLE 47), while the prevalence of adult obesity was 32 percent in 2016 (see TABLE 48).
FIGURE 59 shows that the global shares of the three different types of land (agricultural, forest and other) in total land area remained relatively stable from 2000 to 2020 with slight reductions in agricultural land and forest land shares. Within regions, Europe has the largest share of forest land (46 percent), closely followed by the Americas (41 percent), while the other regions are all around 20 percent. More than half of all land (54 percent) in Asia is agricultural land, compared with 43 percent in Oceania, 38 percent in Africa, 29 percent in the Americas and 21 percent in Europe. The conversion of land from one use to another also varied between the regions. Oceania had agricultural land converted to other land. Both Africa and the Americas converted forest land to agricultural land and/or other land. Europe, Asia and Oceania had forest land expansion coupled with agricultural land reduction from 2000 to 2020 (see TABLE 49).
Countries with the highest share of forest area in land area are located in all regions of the world, mostly the tropical ones; they also tend to be low- and middle-income countries (see FIGURE 60). In 2020, forest covered 97 percent of the land area in Suriname, 94 percent in Guyana and 92 percent in the Federated States of Micronesia. The biggest increases in the share of forest area between 2000 and 2020 took place in Viet Nam (+9 percentage points), Cuba (+9 percentage points) and Fiji (+7 percentage points), while the largest decreases in the share of forest area over the same period happened in Paraguay (-17 percentage points), Nicaragua (-17 percentage points) and Cambodia (-15 percentage points), as featured in TABLE 50. In absolute terms, the top country for afforestation was China, with an additional 43 million ha of forest between 2000 and 2020; deforestation was the strongest in Brazil as 54 million ha of forest were lost there in the 2000–2020 period (see TABLE 49).
The global harvested area of primary crops went up 22 percent between 2000 and 2020 to 1.4 billion ha (see FIGURE 61). Cereals accounted for more than half the world’s harvested area during the period, even though their share declined to 51 percent in 2020 (see TABLE 51). Oil crops covered 23 percent of the global harvested area and experienced the fastest growth in both absolute (+109 million ha) and relative terms (+49 percent). The other main crop groups each account for less than 4 percent of the global harvested area. The overall harvested area went up 2 percent between 2019 and 2020 after a period of marginal decline between 2017 and 2019.
One visible aspect of the efforts to make the agriculture sector more sustainable is the rise of organic agriculture, the main feature of which is its avoidance of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.20 In 2020, the agriculture area under certified organic status or in conversion to organic was 75 million ha. Australia accounted for just under half the total, followed by Argentina (6 percent) and Uruguay (4 percent). The eight countries with the largest organic agriculture area made up 74 percent of the global area under certified organic agriculture (see FIGURE 62 and TABLE 52).
Normalizing the agriculture area under certified organic or in conversion to organic by the agricultural land area allows for comparison of the importance that countries give to this aspect of sustainable agriculture. Looking at countries with a sizeable agricultural area in FIGURE 63, the countries with the highest share of area under organic agriculture in total agricultural area for 2020 are Austria (26 percent), Sweden (20 percent) and Uruguay (20 percent). Fifteen of the top 20 countries are in Europe, highlighting that the region has emphasized the importance of organic agriculture. In other regions, the balance between conventional versus organic farming is still tilted towards the conventional (see TABLE 53).
Water stress, defined as the share of freshwater withdrawal in available freshwater resources, after taking into account environmental water requirements, affects predominantly Western and Central Asia as well as Northern Africa (see FIGURE 64 and TABLE 54). The countries experiencing the most acute water stress levels in 2019 (Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia) are all located in the Arabian peninsula and are withdrawing each year 9 to almost 40 times their renewable freshwater resources available. As a result, non-renewable water resources are used and are diminishing rapidly. The national water stress level can hide some differences within a country. Water stress disaggregation by river basins shows that the basins affected by severe water stress are located not only in Northern Africa and the Near East but also in Northern America, Central and Southern Asia and on the west coast of Latin America.21
The cropland nutrient budget represents the difference between the quantities of synthetic and organic nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) added and withdrawn from the cropland by the production of crops and livestock. An excess of nutrients can lead to environmental risks (for example via additional outputs, such as volatilization, leaching and runoff), while insufficient levels of nutrients constrain yields. FIGURE 65 and TABLE 55 show that the global average cropland nitrogen budget went up 14 percent to 54 kg/ha between 2000 and 2020, although it was on a declining trend during the 2010s. With 93 kg/ha in 2020, Asia had the highest cropland nitrogen budget, far ahead of the Americas (40 kg/ha), Europe (38 kg/ha), Oceania (22 kg/ha) and Africa (12 kg/ha). Oceania had the largest growth of the cropland nitrogen budget between 2000 and 2020 (+555 percent), driven by increased fertilizer inputs and decreased outputs, while Europe is the only region where the cropland nitrogen budget declined (by 5 percent). Asia had the largest total nitrogen inputs in 2020 (166 kg/ha); the Americas had the largest inputs from biological fixation, as well as outputs from crop removal, while Africa had the smallest total nitrogen inputs (39 kg/ha).
Agriculture is both affected by climate change and an important contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Total emissions on agricultural land in 2020 amounted to 10.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Gt CO2eq) of GHG released into the atmosphere, a decrease of 4 percent, or 0.4 Gt CO2eq compared with 2000 (FIGURE 66 and TABLE 56). This decline is due to a decrease in emissions from forest conversion that was larger than the increase in farm-gate emissions. Activities within the farm gate accounted for 7.4 Gt CO2eq, or 70 percent of the total emissions in 2020, followed by net forest conversion/deforestation (2.9 Gt CO2eq, or 28 percent) and fires in humid tropical forests and organic soils (0.2 Gt CO2eq, or 2 percent). Asia was the top agricultural emitter, with 3.8 Gt CO2eq (36 percent of the total) in 2020, followed by the Americas (3.1 Gt CO2eq, or 30 percent), Africa (2.4 Gt CO2eq, or 23 percent), Europe (1.0 Gt CO2eq, or 9 percent) and Oceania (0.2 Gt CO2eq, or 2 percent). CO2 represented 40 percent of the total emissions, or 4.2 Gt CO2eq. Next were methane (CH4) with 4.1 Gt CO2eq (39 percent) and nitrous oxide (N2O) with 2.2 Gt CO2eq (21 percent).
World agriculture emissions within the farm gate (those related to the production of crops and livestock) grew by 13 percent between 2000 and 2020, to 7.4 Gt CO2eq (see FIGURE 67 and TABLE 57). Around 57 percent derive from livestock-related activities, and with 2.8 Gt CO2eq, the emissions from enteric fermentation generated in the digestive system of ruminant livestock were alone responsible for 39 percent of agricultural emissions. Animal and synthetic sources of soil fertilization contributed to slightly less than one-fifth of agricultural emissions. Drained organic soils were responsible for a constant 12 percent share of farm-gate emissions over the 2000–2020 period, while methane released from the cultivation of rice paddies accounted for 9 to 10 percent.
Calculating emissions intensitiese allows for comparison of the GHG performance of a range of commodities, as they represent a simplified indication of the efficiency of production for each commodity, by country and over time. As seen in FIGURE 68, the most CO2-intensive commodities on average in 2020 were cattle meat (30 kg CO2eq/kg) and sheep meat (24 kg CO2eq/kg). The intensity of pig and chicken meat was much lower (1.8 kg CO2eq/kg and 0.6 kg CO2eq/kg respectively). The global emissions intensity for cow milk was 1 kg CO2eq/kg, compared to 5.6 CO2eq/kg for sheep milk. The emissions intensity of rice was 1.1 kg CO2eq/kg, over five times larger than for cereals excluding rice (0.2 kg CO2eq/kg). As seen in TABLE 58, the intensities change significantly across regions, reflecting large differences in associated efficiencies of production. For instance, the emissions intensity of cattle meat is more than twice the world average in Africa (66 kg CO2eq/kg) and nearly half in Europe (17 kg CO2eq/kg).
Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood systems comprise those generated by the production of crops and livestock within the farm gate, land use change and pre- and post-production processes (supply chain processes including transport, processing and input manufacturing, as well as household consumption and waste). Between 2000 and 2020, the share of agrifood systems in total greenhouse gas emissions declined from 39 percent to 31 percent. In Africa and the Americas, the shares remained around 60 and 38 percent, respectively, during the whole period. In Oceania and Asia, the share of agrifood systems dropped by 16–18 percentage points to 36 and 24 percent, respectively, in 2020. Europe was on an increasing trend between 2000 (28 percent) and 2019 (32 percent) but the share decreased to 27 percent in 2020.
Worldwide, winters and summers alike are becoming increasingly hotter than the 1951–1980 average (see FIGURE 69). With 1.44 °C more than the world reference measured over land, 2021 was the fourth warmest year at the global level, behind 2020 (1.71 °C), 2016 (1.66 °C) and 2019 (1.45 °C). Europe is the region where the temperature change has been the highest in 2021 (and also for most of the 2000–2021 period), with 1.60 °C (a significant decrease compared with 3.35 °C in 2020), followed by Asia (1.55 °C), the Americas (1.45 °C), Africa (1.43 °C) and Oceania (0.63 °C). The average temperature change in the 2010s was 1.24 °C, compared to 0.95 °C in the 2000s. As seen in TABLE 59, 141 countries had a mean annual temperature change at least 1.0 °C higher than the 1951–1980 average in 2020; the largest mean annual temperature change was recorded in Tunisia, Iraq and Canada (2.54 °C).
Statistics are at the core of the work of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), its mandate and strategic goals. Article I of its constitution states that “The Organization shall collect, analyse, interpret and disseminate information relating to nutrition, food and agriculture. […] the term ‘agriculture’ and its derivatives includes forestry, fisheries and aquaculture”.
FAO has a decentralized statistical system, with several technical units carrying out statistical activities. The Statistics Division (ESS) produces a vast array of data on agriculture (covering the socioeconomic, environmental, production, trade, food security and nutrition aspects), which form the majority of FAO statistics – other technical divisions are in charge of data on fisheries and aquaculture, forestry, international commodity prices and water. ESS develops and advocates for the implementation of methodologies and standards for data collection, validation, processing and analysis of food and agriculture statistics. In these statistical domains, it also plays a vital role in the compilation, processing and dissemination of internationally comparable data, and provides essential capacity-building support to member countries. In addition, ESS disseminates documents, working papers and statistical publications that cover agricultural and food security statistics (including prices, production, trade and agri-environmental statistical data). ESS is involved in managing a number of large-scale projects aimed at improving statistical methodologies and establishing best practices for collecting, collating, processing, and for disseminating and using data relevant to food security, agriculture and rural areas.
The Office of Chief Statistician (OCS) is responsible for the overall coordination and governance of FAO’s statistical work, both at headquarters and in FAO’s Regional and Country Offices. OCS provides guidance to the technical units in charge of data acquisition, compilation and dissemination, with the aim of ensuring quality and consistency of statistical practices at the corporate level. It plays a quality assurance role in developing methods and standards for food and agriculture statistics and in providing technical assistance and capacity development to member countries. OCS also leads the Organization’s work to monitor the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators under FAO custodianship.
The prevalence of obesity in the adult population is the percentage of adults age 18 and over whose body mass index (BMI) is more than 30 kg/m². The BMI is a simple index of weight-for-height, or the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in metres.
Source: WHO
Owner: World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory Data Repository/World Health Statistics
Land used for cultivation of crops and animal husbandry. It is the total of areas under “Cropland” and “Permanent meadows and pastures”.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Annual quantity of self-supplied water withdrawn for irrigation, livestock and aquaculture purposes, including water specifically withdrawn by water supply companies to operate irrigation systems. It can include water from freshwater resources, as well as water from over-abstraction of renewable groundwater or withdrawal from fossil groundwater, direct use of agricultural drainage water, direct use of (treated) wastewater and desalinated water. Water for the dairy and meat industries and industrial processing of harvested agricultural products is included under industrial water withdrawal.
Source: FAO, Land and Water Division (AQUASTAT)
Owner: FAO
Sum of areas under “Agriculture area certified organic” and “Agriculture area in conversion to organic”. Agriculture area certified organic is the land area exclusively dedicated to organic agriculture and managed by applying organic agriculture methods. It refers to the land area fully converted to organic agriculture. It is the portion of land area (including arable lands, pastures or wild areas) managed (cultivated) or wild harvested in accordance with specific organic standards or technical regulations, which has been inspected and approved by a certification body. Agriculture area in conversion to organic is the land area that is going through the organic conversion process, usually a two-year period of conversion to organic land.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Agriculture, forestry and fishing (AFF) refers to the broad agricultural sector including crop growing and animal production, forestry and logging, and fishing and aquaculture. These sub-sectors correspond to Section A of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 4 and are covered in its Divisions 1, 2 and 3. To distinguish the agricultural sector (crop and livestock in Division 1 of ISIC), the broad agricultural sector is abbreviated as AFF.
Source: United Nations Statistics Division
Owner: UN
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) consist of non-CO2 gases, namely methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) produced by crop and livestock production and management activities, CO2 emissions by sources and sinks from forestland, net forest conversion and drained organic soils, and non-CO2 emissions from forest fires and fires in organic soils.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
This is the total value added in AFF. The value added is the net output of a sector after adding up the value of all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. ISIC, revision 3 or 4, determines the origin of value added. Agriculture here refers to the broad agricultural sector (AFF).
Source: World Bank
Owner: World Bank
Animal oils and fats include animal fats that are obtained by dressing the carcasses of slaughtered animals (slaughter fats), or at a later stage in the butchering process when meat is being prepared for final consumption (butcher fats).
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Aquaculture fish production is defined as the farming of aquatic organisms. Farming implies some form of intervention in the rearing process to enhance production, such as regular stocking, feeding, protection from predators, etc. Farming also implies individual or corporate ownership of the stock being cultivated. For statistical purposes, aquatic organisms, which are harvested by an individual or corporate body that has owned them throughout their rearing period, contribute to aquaculture, while aquatic organisms, which are exploitable by the public as a common property resource, with or without appropriate licences, are the harvest of fisheries. In the case of capture-based aquaculture, only the incremental growth (or weight gain) in captivity, could and should be reported as the production from aquaculture. Data included here cover aquaculture production of fish, molluscs, crustaceans and miscellaneous aquatic animals but exclude the production of marine mammals, crocodiles, corals, pearls, sponges and algae. Fish production is the sum of aquaculture and capture fish production. Data are expressed in live weight equivalent.
Source: FAO, Fisheries and Aquaculture Division
Owner: FAO
Arable land is the total of areas under temporary crops, temporary meadows and pastures, and land with temporary fallow. Arable land does not include land that is potentially cultivable but is not normally cultivated.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Area harvested refers to the area from which a crop is gathered. It excludes, therefore, the area from which, although sown or planted, there was no harvest due to damage, failure, etc. It is usually net of temporary crops and sometimes gross of permanent crops. The net area differs from the gross area insofar as the latter includes uncultivated patches, footpaths, ditches, headlands, shoulders, shelterbelts, etc. If the crop under consideration is harvested more than once during the year as a consequence of successive cropping (i.e. the same crop is sown or planted more than once in the same field during the year), the area is counted as many times as harvested.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Hunting, collecting and gathering activities directed at removing or collecting live wild aquatic organisms are capture fish production. The capture production statistics here indicates the nominal catches of aquatic organisms, killed, caught, trapped or collected for all commercial, industrial, recreational and subsistence purposes or other utilizations in live weight equivalent. Data included here cover capture production of fish, molluscs, crustaceans and miscellaneous aquatic animals but exclude production of marine mammals, crocodiles, corals, pearls, sponges and algae. Fish production is the sum of aquaculture and capture fish production.
Source: FAO, Fisheries and Aquaculture Division
Owner: FAO
The cereal import dependency ratio provides a measure of the dependence of a country or region from cereal imports. The higher the value of the indicator, the higher the dependence. Specifically, the cereal imports dependency ratio tells how much of the available domestic food supply of cereals has been imported and how much comes from the country’s own production. It is computed as (cereal imports - cereal exports) /(cereal production + cereal imports - cereal exports) × 100. Given this formula the indicator assumes only values less than or equal to 100. Negative values indicate that the country is a net exporter of cereals. The indicator is calculated in three-year averages, to reduce the impact of possible errors in estimated production and trade, due to the difficulties in properly accounting for stock variations in major foods.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Wheat, rice paddy, barley, maize, popcorn, rye, oats, millets, sorghum, buckwheat, quinoa, fonio, triticale, canary seed, mixed grain and cereals nes are all considered cereals.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Cereals, flours and cereal grains that are either rolled, flaked, pearled, sliced or kibbled are cereals and preparations.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The food consumer price index (CPI) measures the price change between the current and reference periods of the average basket of food items purchased by households. The food CPI is rescaled to a unique base year of 2010 by FAO for all countries with sufficient time coverage. FAO uses the geometric mean of the monthly indices of the year 2010 as the rescaling factor.
Source: IMF, UNSD, OECD and national statistics websites
Owner: IMF, UNSD and FAO
Cropland is the land used for cultivation of crops. The total of areas under “Arable land” and “Permanent crops”.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Difference between the cropland nitrogen input and output flows. Inputs are comprised of synthetic fertilizers, manure applied to soils, atmospheric deposition and biological fixation; outputs are comprised of crop removal from harvest.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Crop statistics include permanent and temporary crops and cover the following categories: Crops primary, Fibre crops primary, Cereals, Coarse grain, Citrus fruit, Fruit, Oil crops (oil and cake equivalent), Pulses, Roots and tubers, Treenuts and Vegetables.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Butter, buttermilk, cheese, cream, ghee, milk, whey and yoghurt are all dairy products.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The food available for human consumption, expressed in kilocalories per person per day is the dietary energy supply. At the country level, it is calculated as the food remaining for human use after taking out all non-food utilization, including exports, industrial use, animal feed, seed, wastage and changes in stocks.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The dietary energy supply adequacy average expresses the dietary energy supply (DES) as a percentage of the average dietary energy requirement (ADER). Each country’s or region’s average supply of calories for food consumption is normalized by the average dietary energy requirement estimated for its population to provide an index of adequacy of the food supply in terms of calories.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The figures for the dietary energy supply average are based on the latest available data from national food balance sheets and represent the amount of food available for human consumption.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Egg production by type of poultry should refer to the total production of eggs in the shell by all types of hens in both the traditional sector (individually owned small flocks) and the modern sector (large-scale, intensive commercial poultry farms). Total production includes eggs for hatching but excludes farm waste.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Emissions on agricultural land are composed of the sum of emissions within the farm gate and food-related land use change emissions from net forest conversion, fires in organic soils and fires in humid tropical forests.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Emissions from the different economic sectors (energy, agriculture, land use, land-use change and forestry [LULUCF], industrial processes and product use, waste and international bunkers) and their related contributions to all emissions by gases (CO2, CH4, N2O and F-gases) are computed in this domain. Emissions from food systems that can be associated with farm gate activities, food-related land use change and pre- and post- production activities are also computed along with their contributions to all emissions.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Employment comprises all persons of working age who, during a specified brief period, such as one week or one day, were in the following categories: a) paid employment (whether at work or having a job but not at work); or b) self-employment (whether at work or with an enterprise but not at work). The working-age population is the population above the legal working age, but for statistical purposes it comprises all persons above a specified minimum age threshold for which an inquiry on economic activity is made. To promote international comparability, the working-age population is often defined as all persons aged 15 and older, but this may vary from country to country based on national laws and practices (some countries also use an upper age limit). The classification by economic activity refers to the main activity of the establishment in which a person worked during the reference period. The branch of economic activity of a person does not depend on the specific duties or functions of the person’s job, but rather on the characteristics of the economic unit in which the person worked. Data presented by a branch of economic activity are based on ISIC.
Source: ILO
Owner: ILO
Export values are reported as FOB (free on board: the value of the goods plus the value of the services performed to deliver the goods to the border of the exporting country).
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Farm-gate emissions covers all GHG emissions produced from agricultural processes (enteric fermentation, manure management, rice cultivation, synthetic fertilizers, manure applied to soils, manure left on pastures, crop residues, drained organic soils, burning of crop residues, savanna fires, energy use) within the farm gate and at the farm boundary. Non-CO2 gases, namely methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), are produced by crop and livestock production and management activities whereas CO2 emissions are produced from the drainage of organic soils and energy used on farms. The FAOSTAT emissions database is computed following Tier 1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 Guidelines for National GHG Inventories.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The use of fertilizers refers to agricultural use of inorganic (mineral or chemical) fertilizers for the three main plant nutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (expressed as P2O5) and potassium (expressed as K2O). It includes both straight fertilizers (those containing only one of the three primary plant nutrients) and compound fertilizers (those containing more than one of the three primary plant nutrients; they may be NP, NK, PK or NPK). Agricultural use refers to the use for crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, excluding use for animal feed.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Fish net trade is exports plus re-exports minus imports.
Source: FAO, Fisheries and Aquaculture Division
Owner: FAO
The FAO Fish Price Index measures the monthly changes in international prices of a basket of fisheries and aquaculture commodities. The index consists of the average of five commodity group price indices (whitefish, salmon, tuna, other pelagic fish and shrimps) weighted by the average export shares of each of the groups for the 2014–2016 period.
Source: FAO, Fisheries and Aquaculture Division
Owner: FAO
Food is comprised of the commodities in the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) sections 0 (food and live animals), 1 (beverages and tobacco), and 4 (animal and vegetable oils and fats) and SITC division 22 (oil seeds, oil nuts and oil kernels).
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The FAO Food Price Index is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities. It consists of the average of five commodity group price indices (meat, dairy, cereals, vegetable oils and sugar), weighted with the average export shares of each of the groups for 2014–16.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Land spanning more than 0.5 ha with trees higher than 5 metres and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. Excludes land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use. Explanatory notes:
• Forest land is determined both by the presence of trees and by the absence of other predominant land uses. The trees should be able to reach a minimum height of 5 metres in situ.
• Includes areas with young trees that have not yet reached but that are expected to reach a canopy cover of 10 percent and tree height of 5 metres. It also includes areas that are temporarily unstocked owing to clear-cutting as part of a forest management practice or natural disasters, and that are expected to be regenerated within five years. Local conditions may, in exceptional cases, justify the use of a longer time frame.
• Includes forest roads, firebreaks and other small open areas.
• May include forest land in national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas, such as those of specific environmental, scientific, historical, cultural or spiritual interest.
• Includes windbreaks, shelter belts and corridors of trees with an area of more than 0.5 ha and width of more than 20 metres.
• Includes abandoned shifting cultivation land with a regeneration of trees that have, or are expected to reach, a canopy cover of 10 percent and tree height of 5 metres.
• Includes areas with mangroves in tidal zones, regardless of whether this area is classified as land area or not.
• Includes areas with bamboo and palms provided that land use, height and canopy cover criteria are met.
• Some agroforestry systems such as the taungya system, where crops are grown only during the first years of the forest rotation, should be classified as forest.
• Excludes tree stands in agricultural production systems, such as fruit-tree plantations (permanent crops), oil palm plantations, rubber and Christmas trees (permanent crops) and agroforestry systems when crops are grown under tree cover.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Products of domestic origin or manufacture shipped out of the country are forest product exports. They include exports from free economic zones and re-exports and exclude “in-transit” shipments. They are reported in cubic metres of solid volume or metric tonnes and values are normally recorded as FOB.
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Products imported for domestic consumption or processing shipped into a country are forest product imports. They include imports into free economic zones or for re-export and exclude “in-transit” shipments. They are reported in cubic metres of solid volume or metric tonnes and values normally include cost, insurance and freight (CIF).
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Forest product production includes the production of products that may immediately be consumed in the production of another product (e.g. wood pulp, which may immediately be converted into paper as part of a continuous process). This includes production from all sources within the country including public, private and informal sources. It excludes the production of veneer sheets that are used for plywood production within the same country. It is reported in cubic metres of solid volume in the case of roundwood, sawnwood and wood-based panels and metric tonnes in the case of charcoal, pulp and paper products.
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Vegetables, as classified in this group, are mainly annual plants cultivated as field and garden crops in the open and under glass and are used almost exclusively for food. Vegetables grown principally for animal feed or seed should be excluded. Certain plants, normally classified as cereals and pulses, belong to this group when harvested green, such as green maize, green peas, etc. Chilies and green peppers are included in this grouping when they are harvested for consumption as vegetables and not processed into spices. Trade data for fresh vegetables also include chilled vegetables, meaning the temperature of the products has been reduced to around 0 ˚C without the products being frozen. Fruit crops consist of fruits and berries that, with few exceptions, are characterized by their sweet taste. Nearly all are permanent crops, mainly from trees, bushes and shrubs, as well as vines and palms. Fruit crops are consumed directly as food and are processed into dried fruit, fruit juice, canned fruit, frozen fruit, jam, alcoholic beverages, etc.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The government expenditure on agriculture refers to core areas of government functions relevant to agriculture, forestry and fishing (AFF) based on the Classification of Functions of Government as outlined in the Government Finance Statistics Manual of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (2014). Statistics on expenditure in AFF are used to compile the agriculture orientation index.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO and IMF
The gross fixed capital formation is the total value of a producer’s acquisitions, less disposals, of fixed assets during the accounting period plus certain additions to the value of non-produced assets (such as subsoil assets or major improvements in the quantity, quality or productivity of land) realized by the productive activity of institutional units.
Source: UNSD, OECD and national statistics’ websites
Owner: UNSD, OECD and FAO
Import values are reported as CIF (cost insurance and freight: 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 goods from the border of the exporting country to the border of the importing country).
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
All roundwood except wood fuel is industrial roundwood. In production statistics, it is an aggregate comprising sawlogs and veneer logs; pulpwood, round and split; and other industrial roundwood. It is reported in cubic metres solid volume underbark (i.e. excluding bark).
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
The inflation rate of an index for any month refers to the percentage change in the index value for the month as compared to the index value of the corresponding month of the previous year. Global and regional food consumer price inflation measures food inflation for a group of countries at different geographical scales: Africa, Europe, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America and Asia. Global and regional inflation are calculated using household consumption expenditure weights.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Country area excluding area under inland waters and coastal waters.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Land area equipped with irrigation infrastructure and equipment, in working order, to provide water to crops. The equipment does not have to be used during the reference year. The area equipped for irrigation covers areas equipped for fully controlled irrigation by any of the methods of surface, sprinkler or localized irrigation. It also includes areas under partially controlled irrigation methods of spate irrigation (controlling floodwater to water crops), equipped wetlands and inland valley bottoms and equipped flood recession. It excludes manual watering of plants using buckets, watering cans or other devices.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Land cultivated with long-term crops that do not have to be replanted for several years (such as cocoa and coffee), land under trees and shrubs producing flowers (such as roses and jasmine), and nurseries (except those for forest trees, which should be classified under “Forestry”) are all considered land under permanent crops. Permanent meadows and pastures are excluded from land under permanent crops.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops through cultivation or naturally (wild prairie or grazing land) is considered land under permanent meadows and pastures. Permanent meadows and pastures on which trees and shrubs are grown should be recorded under this heading only if the growing of forage crops is the most important use of the area. Measures may be taken to keep or increase productivity of the land (i.e. use of fertilizers, mowing or systematic grazing by domestic animals.) This class includes:
• grazing in wooded areas (agroforestry areas, for example)
• grazing in shrubby zones (heath, maquis, garigue)
• grassland in the plain or low mountain areas used for grazing: land crossed during transhumance where the animals spend a part of the year (approximately 100 days) without returning to the holding in the evening: mountain and subalpine meadows and similar; and steppes and dry meadows used for pasture.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
LULUCF covers all GHG emissions and removals produced in the different land use categories, representing the three IPCC Land Use categories: cropland, forest land, and grassland, collectively called emissions/removals from the Forestry and Other Land Use (FOLU) sector. FOLU emissions consist of CO2 (carbon dioxide), CH4 (methane) and N2O (nitrous oxide) associated with land management activities. CO2 emissions/removals are derived from estimated net carbon stock changes in above- and below-ground biomass pools of forest land, including forest land converted to other land uses. CH4 and N2O, and additional CO2 emissions are estimated for fires and drainage of organic soils. The FAOSTAT emissions database is computed following Tier 1 IPCC 2006 Guidelines for National GHG Inventories.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Livestock primary production includes products from live and slaughtered animals. Products from slaughtered animals include meat, offals, raw fats, fresh hides and skins. Products from live animals include milk, eggs, honey, beeswax and fibres of animal origin.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Meat is defined as the flesh of animals (excluding fish) used for food. In production data, meat is normally reported inclusive of bone and exclusive of meat that is unfit for human consumption. As reported by individual countries, meat production data may refer either to commercial production (meat entering marketing channels), inspected production (from animals slaughtered under sanitary inspection), or total production (the total of the above-mentioned categories plus slaughter for personal consumption). All FAO annual production data refer to total production.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Whole fresh milk production from buffaloes, camels, cows, goats and sheep.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Net CO2 emissions/removals from forest land consist of net carbon stock change in the living biomass pool (aboveground and belowground) associated with: (i) forest, referring to changes occurred on forest land in the reported year; and (ii) net forest conversion from forest land to other land uses. The FAOSTAT data are computed at Tier 3, with the stock difference method, following IPCC 2006 Vol. 4, Ch. 2 and 4.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Net CO2 emissions/removals from forest land consist of net carbon stock gain/loss in the living biomass pool (aboveground and belowground biomass) associated with forest and net forest conversion. The FAOSTAT emissions database is computed following Tier 1 IPCC 2006 Guidelines for National GHG Inventories and uses area and carbon stocks data compiled by countries in the FAO Global Forest Resource Assessments.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Value in USD of exports minus imports.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Oil-bearing crops or oil crops include both annual (usually called oilseeds) and perennial plants whose seeds, fruits or mesocarp and nuts are valued mainly for the edible or industrial oils that are extracted from them. Oil crops exclude dessert and table nuts, although they are rich in oil, as well as annual oilseed plants that are either harvested green or are used for grazing and for green manure. Some oil crops are also fibre crops in that both the seeds and the fibres are harvested from the same plant (for example coconuts, kapok fruit, seed cotton, linseed and hempseed).
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The paper and paperboard category is an aggregate category. In the production and trade statistics, it represents the sum of graphic papers; sanitary and household papers; packaging materials and other paper and paperboard. It excludes manufactured paper products such as boxes, cartons, books and magazines, etc.
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, disinfectants and any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying or controlling any pest, including vectors of human or animal disease, unwanted species of plants or animals causing harm during or otherwise interfering with the production, processing, storage, transport or marketing of food, agricultural commodities, wood and wood products or animal feedstuffs, or substances which may be administered to animals for the control of insects, arachnids or other pests in or on their bodies. The term includes substances intended for use as a plant growth regulator, defoliant, desiccant or agent for thinning fruit or preventing the premature fall of fruit, and substances applied to crops either before or after harvest to protect the commodity from deterioration during storage and transport. Pesticides use data refers to quantities of pesticides applied to crops and seeds in the agricultural sector. Figures are expressed in metric tonnes of active ingredients. However, due to some country reporting practices, the data may be reported by: use in formulated product; sales; distribution; or imports for use in the agricultural sector.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity is an estimate of the percentage of people in the population who live in households classified as moderately or severely food insecure. The assessment is conducted using data collected with the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) or a compatible experience-based food security measurement questionnaire (such as the Household Food Security Survey Module – HFSSM). The probability of being food insecure is estimated using the one-parameter logistic Item Response Theory model (the Rasch model) and thresholds for classification are made cross-country comparable by calibrating the metrics obtained in each country against the FIES global reference scale, maintained by FAO. The threshold to classify “moderate or severe” food insecurity corresponds to the severity associated with the item “having to eat less” on the global FIES scale. In simpler terms, a household is classified as moderately or severely food insecure when at least one adult in the household was reported to have been exposed, at times during the year, to low-quality diets and might have been forced to also reduce the quantity of food they would normally eat because of a lack of money or other resources. It is an indicator of a lack of access to food.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The prevalence of severe food insecurity is an estimate of the percentage of people in the population who live in households classified as severely food insecure. The assessment is conducted using data collected with the FIES or a compatible experience-based food security measurement questionnaire (such as the HFSSM). The probability of being food insecure is estimated using the one-parameter logistic Item Response Theory model (the Rasch model) and thresholds for classification are made cross-country comparable by calibrating the metrics obtained in each country against the FIES global reference scale, maintained by FAO. The threshold to classify “severe” food insecurity corresponds to the severity associated with the item “having not eaten for an entire day” on the global FIES scale. In simpler terms, a household is classified as severely food insecure when at least one adult in the household was reported to have been exposed, at times during the year, to several of the most severe experiences described in the FIES questions, such as having been forced to reduce the quantity of the food, having skipped meals, having gone hungry, or having to go for a whole day without eating because of a lack of money or other resources. It is an indicator of lack of access to food.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Expresses the probability that a randomly selected individual from the population consumes an insufficient quantity of calories to cover their energy requirement for an active and healthy life. The indicator is computed by comparing a probability distribution of habitual daily dietary energy consumption with a threshold level called the minimum dietary energy requirement. Both are based on the notion of an average individual in the reference population.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Producer prices are prices received by farmers for primary crops, live animals and livestock primary products as collected at the point of initial sale (prices paid at the farm-gate).
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Figures relate to the total domestic production whether inside or outside the agricultural sector, i.e. they include non-commercial production and production from kitchen gardens. Unless otherwise indicated, production is reported at the farm level for crop and livestock products (i.e. in the case of crops, excluding harvesting losses) and in terms of live weight for fish items (i.e. the actual ex-water weight at time of catch). All data shown relate to total meat production from both commercial and farm slaughter. Data are expressed in terms of dressed carcass weight, excluding offal and slaughter fats. Production of beef and buffalo meat includes veal; mutton and goat meat includes meat from lambs and kids; and pig meat includes bacon and ham in fresh equivalent. Poultry meat includes meat from all domestic birds and refers, wherever possible, to ready-to-cook weigh.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Production and crops refer to the actual harvested production from the field or orchard and gardens, excluding harvesting and threshing losses and that part of a crop not harvested for any reason. Production, therefore, includes the quantities of the commodity sold in the market (marketed production) and the quantities consumed or used by the producers (auto-consumption). When the production data available refers to a production period falling into two successive calendar years and it is not possible to allocate the relative production to each of them, it is usual to refer production data to that year into which the bulk of the production falls. Crop production data are recorded in tonnes (t). In many countries, crop production data are obtained as a function of the estimated yield and the total area. If such a compilation method of production statistics is enforced by the country, it must be ensured that the total area does not refer to sown or planted areas, which would then give the biological production, but to the actually harvested area during the year.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
National average protein supply (expressed in grams per capita per day) includes the following groups: meat, offals, animal fats and products, milk and products, eggs, fish, seafood and products, aquatic products and other.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
National average protein supply is expressed in grams per capita per day.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Waste and scraps of paper or paperboard that have been collected for reuse or trade include paper and paperboard that have been used for their original purposes and residues from paper and paperboard production.
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
All roundwood felled or otherwise harvested and removed is comprised of all wood obtained from removals, i.e. the quantities removed from forests and from trees outside the forest, including wood recovered from natural, felling and logging losses during the period, calendar year or forest year. It includes all wood removed with or without bark, including wood removed in its round form, or split, roughly squared or in other form (e.g. branches, roots, stumps and burls, where these are harvested) and wood that is roughly shaped or pointed. It is an aggregate comprising wood fuel, including wood for charcoal and industrial roundwood (wood in the rough). It is reported in cubic metres solid volume underbark (i.e. excluding bark).
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Roots and tubers are plants yielding starchy roots, tubers, rhizomes, corms and stems. The denomination “roots and tubers” excludes crops that are cultivated mainly for feed (mangolds, swedes) or for processing into sugar (sugar beets), and those classified as “roots, bulb and tuberous vegetables” (onions, garlic and beets).
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Wood that has been produced from both domestic and imported roundwood, either by sawing lengthways or by a profile-chipping process and that exceeds 6 mm in thickness is sawnwood.
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Starchy roots include cassava and products, potatoes and products, sweet potatoes and other roots.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Height-for-age less than -2 standard deviations of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards median, among children aged 0–59 months.
Source: World Bank
Owner: UNICEF/WHO/The World Bank: Joint child malnutrition estimates
Sugar crops include sugar beet, sugar cane, sugar crops nes.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
The number of people undernourished is obtained by multiplying estimates of the proportion of undernourished for each country by estimates of the total population. Undernourishment refers to the condition of people whose dietary energy consumption is continuously below a minimum dietary energy requirement for maintaining a healthy life and carrying out light physical activity.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Vegetable oils are the oil equivalent of oil crops, which include seeds, nuts, oil palm fruit, olives and soybeans.
Source: FAO, Statistics Division
Owner: FAO
Water stress is the ratio between total freshwater withdrawn by all major sectors and total renewable freshwater resources, after taking into account environmental water requirements.
Source: FAO, Land and Water Division (AQUASTAT)
Owner: FAO
Wood carbonized by partial combustion or by heat from external sources is wood charcoal. It includes charcoal used as a fuel or for other uses, e.g. as a reduction agent in metallurgy or as an absorption or filtration medium.
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Roundwood that will be used as fuel for purposes such as cooking, heating or power production is wood fuel. This includes wood harvested from main stems, branches and other parts of trees (where these are harvested for fuel) and wood that will be used for the production of charcoal (e.g. in pit kilns and portable ovens), wood pellets and other agglomerates. It also includes wood chips to be used for fuel that are made directly (i.e. in the forest) from roundwood. It excludes wood charcoal, pellets and other agglomerates. It is reported in cubic metres solid volume underbark (i.e. excluding bark).
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Wood pellets are made from wood agglomerates produced from co-products (such as cutter shavings, sawdust or chips) of the mechanical wood processing industry, furniture-making industry or other wood transformation activities. They are produced either directly by compression or by the addition of a binder in a proportion not exceeding 3 percent by weight. Such pellets are cylindrical, with a diameter not exceeding 25 mm and a length not exceeding 100 mm. They are assumed to have 8 percent moisture content.
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
Wood pulp is fibrous material prepared from pulpwood, wood chips, particles or residues by a mechanical and/or chemical process for further manufacture into paper, paperboard, fibreboard or other cellulose products. It is an aggregate comprising mechanical wood pulp, semi-chemical wood pulp, chemical wood pulp and dissolving wood pulp. It is reported in metric tonnes air-dry weight (i.e. with 10 percent moisture content).
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
This product category is an aggregate comprising veneer sheets, plywood, particle board and fibreboard. It is reported in cubic metres solid volume.
Source: FAO, Forestry Division
Owner: FAO
1 FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 2022. FAOSTAT: Land Use. In: FAO. Rome. Cited October 2022. http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/RL
2 FAO. 2022. FAOSTAT: Land Use. In: FAO. Rome. Cited October 2022. http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/RL
3 FAO. 1999. The FAO Field Programme and agricultural development in Asia and the Pacific. In: FAO. Rome. Cited October 2022. http://www.fao.org/3/AC621E/ac621e00.htm
4 FAO. 2016. Country Profile – Egypt. In: FAO. Rome. Cited October 2022. www.fao.org/3/i9729en/I9729EN.pdf
5 World Bank. 2022. World Bank Country and Lending Groups. In: The World Bank. Washington, D.C. Cited October 2022. https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups
6 ILO (International Labour Organization). 2022. Employment by sex and economic activity -- ILO modelled estimates. In: ILO. Geneva. Cited October 2022. https://www.ilo.org/shinyapps/bulkexplorer25/?lang=en&segment=indicator&id=EMP_2EMP_SEX_ECO_NB_A
7 ILO. 2022. Employment by sex, status in employment and economic activity. In: ILO. Geneva. Cited October 2022. https://www.ilo.org/shinyapps/bulkexplorer11/?lang=en&segment=indicator&id=EMP_TEMP_SEX_STE_ECO_NB_A
8 UN (United Nations). 2020. Time-use statistics. In: UN. New York. Cited October 2022. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/timeuse/
9 FAO. 2022. Government expenditures in agriculture 2001–2020. Global and regional trends. FAOSTAT Analytical Brief Series No 35. Rome. https://www.fao.org/3/cb8314en/cb8314en.pdf
10 African Union. 2014. Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods. Addis Ababa. African Union Commission https://www.au.int/web/sites/default/files/documents/31247-doc-malabo_declaration_2014_11_26.pdf
11 FAO. n.d. Climate-Smart Agriculture and Digital Agriculture. In: FAO. Rome. Cited October 2022. http://www.fao.org/climate-smart-agriculture/en/ and http://www.fao.org/digital-agriculture/en/
12 FAO. n.d. Biotechnology. In: FAO. Rome. Cited October 2022. http://www.fao.org/biotechnology/en/
13 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) & FAO. 2019. OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2019–2028. Paris. OECD Publishing and Rome. FAO. https://doi.org/10.1787/agr_outlook-2019-en
14 FAO. 2021. FAOSTAT: Trade: Crops and livestock products. In: FAO. Rome. Cited October 2022. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/TCL
15 OECD & FAO. 2019. OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2019-2028. Paris, OECD Publishing and Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.1787/agr_outlook-2019-en
16 FAO, IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), WFP (World Food Programme) & WHO (World Health Organization). 2022. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc0639en
17 FAO, IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), WFP (World Food Programme) & WHO (World Health Organization). 2022. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc0639en
18 UN. Small Island Developing States. In: UN. New York. Cited October 2022. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/sids/list
19 The methodology for compiling the food balance sheets was revised at the end of 2019. Data up to 2013 still use the previous methodology, which may cause breaks in series. More information on the new methodology is available at http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/FBS/New%20FBS%20methodology.pdf. A summary of the methodological changes can be found at http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/FBS/Key%20differences%20between%20new%20and%20old%20Food%20Balance%20Sheet.pdf
20 FAO. 1998. Evaluating the potential contribution of organic agriculture to sustainability goals. In: FAO. Rome. Cited October 2022. http://www.fao.org/3/ac116e/ac116e00.htm
21 FAO & UN-Water. 2021. Progress on level of water stress. Global baseline for SDG 6 Indicator 6.4.2: Level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources. Rome, FAO and UN-Water. http://www.fao.org/3/cb6241en/cb6241en.pdf
