Food and Agriculture Organization

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

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

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

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

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

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