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Net trade of food products as a share of domestic supply

Data

Net trade of food products as a share of domestic supply

FAO
See all data and research on:
Agricultural Production

What you should know about this indicator

  • The data includes food items across the following groups: cereals and grains, pulses, starchy roots, fruits and vegetables, oils and fats, sugar, meat, dairy and eggs, alcoholic beverages, and other products. The latter group includes miscellaneous items such as spices, offals, and other minor commodities.
  • Note that while these items are primarily for food consumption, they may also be used for non-food purposes such as biofuels or animal feed.
Net trade of food products as a share of domestic supply
FAO
Net exported tonnes of food products expressed as a share of domestic supply. This includes items primarily intended for human consumption, but some may also be used for non-food purposes such as biofuels or animal feed. Positive values mean that countries are net exporters and negative values mean they are net importers.
Source
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 17, 2025
Next expected update
March 2026
Date range
1961–2022
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

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.

Retrieved on
March 17, 2025
Retrieved from
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBSH
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Food Balances: Food Balances (-2013, old methodology and population) (2023).

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.

Retrieved on
March 17, 2025
Retrieved from
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Food Balances: Food Balances (2010-) (2024).

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
  • This indicator is calculated as 100 x (exports - imports) / domestic supply.
  • Imports, exports, and domestic supply encompass the total of all items across the following groups: cereals and grains, pulses, starchy roots, fruits and vegetables, oils and fats, sugar, meat, dairy and eggs, alcoholic beverages, and an other products. The latter group includes miscellaneous items such as spices, offals, and other minor commodities.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Net trade of food products as a share of domestic supply”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser (2023) - “Agricultural Production”. Data adapted from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/net-food-trade-as-a-share-of-domestic-supply [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Net trade of food products as a share of domestic supply – FAO” [dataset]. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Food Balances: Food Balances (-2013, old methodology and population)”; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Food Balances: Food Balances (2010-)” [original data]. Retrieved April 25, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/net-food-trade-as-a-share-of-domestic-supply

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