FAOSTAT: Investment: Credit to Agriculture

The Development Flows to Agriculture (DFA) republishes the OECD Creditor Reporting System (CRS) Aid Activity database, which provides comprehensive data on development flows from all donors to all recipients since the early 1970s. The use of CRS for compiling the DFA dataset capitalizes on the expertise of the OECD in this area, while minimizing respondents’ burden and avoiding duplication of efforts. FAO extracts components of Agriculture, forestry and fishing; rural development; agricultural industry; and general environment protection, and reorganizes these into a set of donor-recipient-purpose in terms of four flow types (Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows; Other Official Flows (OOF); private grants; and private sector instruments (PSI)). The objective of the DFA database is to provide readily available data to enable analysis on aid flows and the purposes they serve, with an emphasis on agriculture, its components, and environmental protection.

The food and agricultural trade dataset is collected, processed and disseminated by FAO according to the standard International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS) Methodology. The data is mainly provided by UNSD, Eurostat, and other national authorities as needed. The source data is checked for outliers, trade partner data is used for non-reporting countries or missing cells, and data on food aid is added to take into account total cross-border trade flows. The trade database includes the following variables: export quantity, export value, import quantity, and import value. It includes all food and agricultural products imported/exported annually by all the countries in the world.

This dataset provides annual statistics on crop and livestock production across countries and territories. For crops, data are provided on area harvested, production quantities and yields. For livestock, data are provided on animal stocks, numbers of producing and slaughtered animals, and the production of meat, milk, eggs and other livestock products. The dataset also includes information on production quantities for selected processed products, such as vegetable oils, sugar, fibres, beer, wine and major dairy products.

The Statistics Division of FAO collects annually data on Government Expenditure on Agriculture through a questionnaire, which was developed in partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF is the responsible institution for the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) methodology and annually collects GFS data, including Expenditure by Functions of Government (COFOG). The Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG) is an international classification developed by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and published by the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD), with the aim of categorise governments' functions according to their purposes. The FAO questionnaire aligns with Table 7 of the IMF GFS questionnaire, replicates the relevant aggregates and drills down to request additional detail related to Agriculture. The FAO dataset consists of a time series, from 2001 onwards, of Total Government Expenditure and expenditure in: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, along with its three disaggregated subsectors of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing; and Environmental Protection. In addition, expenditure in each detailed function are further disaggregated into Recurrent and Capital expenditure. Additional indicators include the Agriculture Share of Government Expenditure, and the Agriculture Orientation Index (ratio between the Agriculture Share of Government Expenditure and the Agriculture Value Added as Share of GDP). Data are reported for the highest level of government available (Consolidated general government, consolidated central government or budgetary central government) and are available for about 100 countries on a regular basis.

The FAOSTAT domain on Emissions from Energy use in agriculture contains data on energy used in agriculture (including forestry, aquaculture and fisheries), for instance to operate machinery, irrigate, heat stables, operate aquaculture ponds and fishing vessels, and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It also includes on-farm use of, and related GHG emissions from, electricity and heat generated off-farm. Data are available by country and regional groups with global coverage and are updated annually.

The food and agricultural trade indicators dataset is based on trade, production and gross domestic product (GDP) data. Agri-food trade data are collected, processed and disseminated by FAO according to the standard International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS) Methodology. The data is mainly provided by UNSD, Eurostat, and other national authorities as needed. The source data is checked for outliers, trade partner data is used for non-reporting countries or missing cells, and data on food aid is added to take total cross-border trade flows into account. The trade database includes the following variables: export quantity, export value, import quantity, and import value. It includes all food and agricultural products imported/exported annually by all countries in the world. Production data details are available at https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL and GDP data details are available at https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/MK