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Deriving Food Security Information fromNational Household Budget Surveys

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    Document
    Working paper
    Estimating Food Consumption Patterns by Reconciling Food Balance Sheets and Household Budget Surveys
    dec/14
    2014
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    Food Balance Sheets (FBS) are one of the most important sources of data on food availability for human consumption. This paper presents a method to improve the information on food consumption patterns of FBS by using national household budget surveys (HBS). In this paper, food commodities are categorized into 16 major food groups. For each food group, the contribution to the overall caloric intake is represented in shares. Item group shares of 64 surveys from 51 low and middle income countries are compared with shares from country-specific FBS. Given the countries represented in the data, the analysis evaluates food consumption of over 3 billion persons worldwide. A model based on a cross-entropy measure of information has been developed in order to reconcile aggregate food consumption patterns suggested by FBS and HBS. The latter model accounts for the fact that data from both data sources are prone to measurement errors. Overall, the results of the reconciliation suggest that aver age consumption of cereals, eggs, fish products, pulses and vegetables are likely to be underestimated in FBS, while fruits, meat, milk and sugar products are likely to be overestimated in FBS. Even though the suggested changes in average food consumption are moderate, the results imply considerable relative changes in the aggregate consumption of single food groups. Furthermore, the results imply that the aggregate consumption of fats is 2% higher than currently assumed. The updated consumption patterns provide valuable information from an agro-industrial perspective. Differences in updated consumption pattern with respect to the original FBS might suggest a re-evaluation of FBS elements of the value chain, starting from production and ending at food losses.
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    Book (series)
    Technical study
    Compendium of food consumption statistics from household surveys in developing countries
    Volume 2 : Africa,Latin America and Oceania
    1994
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    This first issue of the publication presents data not only from the recent surveys but also, in a number of cases, from some undertaken as far back as the 1970's in order to provide some perspective of the changes over time. However, because of the many surveys involved, it is divided into two volumes: Volume 1,1 covering the surveys conducted in the developing countries in Asia, and the present Volume 2, covering the surveys conducted in the developing countries of Africa, Latin America and Oceania. Another compendium covering the surveys conducted in developed countries will be issued, probably in 1995, following the computerization of all the available survey data in the FAO Statistics Division's database. Subsequently, a single compendium, updating the information, will be periodically issued.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Technical book
    Processing food consumption data from household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES)
    Guidelines for countries collecting data in line with the United Nations Statistical Commission-endorsed guidelines on food data collection in HCES
    2025
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    The food data processing guidelines presented in this document provide some basic principles to adopt when transforming the food data collected in household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES) to data ready for poverty or food security analysis (among other things). The goal is to enable more and more timely, consistent and reliable statistics derived from food consumption data, while also improving the quality and transparency of data processing.The first part presents food consumption modules and provides some useful principles and general methods to consider before starting work. The analyst needs to assess the data collection tools and other available information before embarking on processing the data. Furthermore, the analyst should decide on the overall approach to cleaning the data.The second part provides a step-by-step description of food data processing, following 11 steps that describe how to bring the food consumption data from its raw form, as collected in the survey, to transformed data ready to be used for statistical analysis. The document was produced under the aegis of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Food Security, Agricultural and Rural Statistics (UN-CEAG), which reports to the United Nations Statistical Commission. It was prepared by members of the UN-CEAG task team on food security and consumption statistics, and with several rounds of consultation with a large group of experts from national statistical offices, international organisations and academia.

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    High-profile
    State of knowledge of soil biodiversity - Status, challenges and potentialities
    Report 2020
    2020
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    There is increasing attention to the importance of biodiversity for food security and nutrition, especially above-ground biodiversity such as plants and animals. However, less attention is being paid to the biodiversity beneath our feet, soil biodiversity, which drives many processes that produce food or purify soil and water. This report is the result of an inclusive process involving more than 300 scientists from around the world under the auspices of the FAO’s Global Soil Partnership and its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, and the European Commission. It presents concisely the state of knowledge on soil biodiversity, the threats to it, and the solutions that soil biodiversity can provide to problems in different fields. It also represents a valuable contribution to raising awareness of the importance of soil biodiversity and highlighting its role in finding solutions to today's global threats.
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    High-profile
    Status of the World's Soil Resources: Main Report 2015
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    The SWSR is a reference document on the status of global soil resources that provides regional assessments of soil change. The information is based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, complemented with expert knowledge and project outputs. It provides a description and a ranking of ten major soil threats that endanger ecosystem functions, goods and services globally and in each region separately. Additionally, it describes direct and indirect pressures on soils and ways and means to combat s oil degradation. The report contains a Synthesis report for policy makers that summarizes its findings, conclusions and recommendations.

    The full report has been divided into sections and individual chapters for ease of downloading:

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    Book (series)
    Flagship
    The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020
    Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets
    2020
    Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions.The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.