Trends in World Agricultural and Food Trade

Abstract

International commerce in agricultural and food products is an important component of food security and, for many developing countries, an essential part of their economic development. Agricultural products (which may be food or non-food) are imported or exported by most countries. Certain views equate food security with self-sufficiency, and thus regard importation of food as a mark of food insecurity at the national level, but the internationally accepted definition of food security does not share those views. Food security is nowadays defined as a situation in which all people at all times have access to adequate food; the food that is to be accessed may be produced domestically or imported. Thus exporting and importing food (and other agricultural products) is nowadays considered as a key element in achieving food security.This paper reviews tendencies in the amount and content of agricultural and food trade since the early 1960s, at the world scale and for major world regions, using a metric of world-average unit values based on 2004-2006. It finds that during the past half century, whilst agricultural production trebled, agricultural trade increased by a factor of eight. At region level, only the Americas (North and Latin America) are net exporters of agricultural and food products, whereas the other major regions (Europe, Asia and Africa) are net importers. It also finds that recent surges in agricultural and food commodity prices (2007-08 and 2010-11) have not disrupted the physical amounts traded, as initially feared.A Methodological Appendix at the end of the pa­per provides detailed information on sources and methods. Supplementary Information available online includes an Excel file containing estimates of reference world-average unit values for over 350 traded items for the ba­se period 2004-2006. Results are mainly based on the detailed country-level time series on agricultural and food trade annual flows for the period 1961-2011, contained in FAOSTAT, the FAO statistical information system on food and agriculture.