The Supply Utilisation Accounts and Food Balances domain covers:
Elements covered:
Supply utilisation accounts are time series data dealing with statistics on supply (production, imports and stock changes) and utilisation (exports, feed + seed , food, and other use-including waste) which are kept physically together to allow the matching of food availability with food use.
The statistical framework of SUAs has been developed with the aim of providing a useful statistical tool for the preparation, conduct and appraisal of government action aimed at developing and improving the agricultural and food sectors of national economies.
It has long been recognised that it is no longer meaningful to deal separately with individual statistical series, such as those for production and trade, etc. While the separate data series by themselves are no doubt important, it is equally important to establish the links between them. Statisticians must be in a position to work with flows and matrices rather than with individual sets of data alone. This implies that the statistics of any single commodity must be traceable all the way from production and utilisation to their final consumption.
Proceed to the Supply Utilisation Accounts data (queries) page
A 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 availablity for human consumption which corresponds to the sources of supply and its utilisation. 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 utilisation side a distinction is made between the quantities exported, fed to livestock + used for seed, losses during storage and transportation, and food supplies available for human consumption. The per capita 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 in it. Data on per capita 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 dietary energy value, protein and fat content.
Proceed to the Food Balance Sheets data (queries) page
The Core data set is temporarily unavailable on the FAOSTAT site while a full technical methodogical review and analysis is undertaken. In the meantime, users can access the archive data: http://faostat.fao.org/site/395/default.aspx where consumption and SUA/FBS data are available until 2003.
Important Notice on Changes in Food Balance Sheets
The methodology for the estimation of food balance sheets has been revised. This includes modern aggregation techniques for the conversion of transformed commodities into primary equivalents.
Also, due to re-estimation of trade data, substantial changes for sugar data has been observed. Users should be aware of these important changes and note that the various data series will differ from the food balance sheets of the previous years.
Due to insufficient data at this time some countries are omitted. It is hoped that as additional information is provided to our statisticians, we will be able to update these too.