How much food (by category) is produced annually in the world (or in the U.S.)?

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 04 Dec 2005 17:11 PST

The top ten food items produced in the US in 2004 are as follows
(values are in metric tonnes):


  1 Maize 298,233,088  
  2 Soybeans 85,740,952    
  3 Cow Milk, Whole, Fresh 77,565,000  
  4 Wheat 58,881,368    
  5 Sugar Cane 27,501,310    
  6 Sugar Beets 27,002,350    
  7 Potatoes 20,419,280    
  8 Indigenous Chicken Meat 15,539,000   
  9 Tomatoes 12,400,000   
 10 Sorghum 11,731,710    
 

I'd be happy to provide the next ten food items on the list, as well
as similar figures on fish production, if that would meet your needs.

Data for other countries are available as well although -- oddly
enough -- I did not see any indication that anyone has summed these
all together to arrive at a figure of total world food production.

Let me know your thoughts on the above statistics.


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by knowser-ga on 05 Dec 2005 06:04 PST

Excellent, this is exactly what I need. Please complete this list with
other food items (meat, fish, processed food), etc. Please also
provide the data for other countries (per country is okay).

For extra bonus, please provide some sort of an indication of how much
of this food is intended for human consumption vs animal feed vs
whatever else they make out of foodstuff (soybeans, in particular).

Thanks.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 05 Dec 2005 07:08 PST

knowser-ga,

Glad to hear that this info hit the nail on the head for your needs.

I can readily provide the additional data for the US, as your original
question asked for.

In addition, I can certainly direct you to the source of information
where you can access the information yourself for any other country of
interest.  I'm afraid I can't post the information here for you,
though...there are almost 200 countries in the world!


Would information on the US -- and instructions for accessing data for
other countries -- meet your needs as an answer to your question?

Let me know.

pafalafa-ga


P.S.  I did not see information that breaks out human food use vs
other uses for food products, but if any shows up, I'll certainly
include it.

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Clarification of Question by knowser-ga on 05 Dec 2005 10:13 PST

Yes, the info on US plus links to the info on other countries will
suffice. Thank you.

knowser-ga,


Thanks for clarifying how to best answer your question.

The UN-chartered group, the Food and Agricultural Organization, is an
excellent source of international statistics on food production of all
sorts.

The easiest point of access to the FAO data is here:


http://www.fao.org/es/ess/top/country.jsp?lang=EN
Food and Agricultural commodities production 
Commodities by country 



By selecting the country of interest to you, you'll get a quick list
of the top agricultural commodities in the country.  For the US, this
list is:



 

 Rank Commodity Production (MT)  
 
 1 Maize 298,233,088    
 2 Soybeans 85,740,952    
 3 Cow Milk, Whole, Fresh 77,565,000   
 4 Wheat 58,881,368    
 5 Sugar Cane 27,501,310    
 6 Sugar Beets 27,002,350    
 7 Potatoes 20,419,280    
 8 Indigenous Chicken Meat 15,539,000    
 9 Tomatoes 12,400,000   
 10 Sorghum 11,731,710    
 11 Oranges 11,729,900    
 12 Indigenous Cattle Meat 11,040,000    
 13 Rice, Paddy 10,227,960    
 14 Indigenous Pigmeat 8,860,000    
 15 Cottonseed 7,479,740    
 16 Barley 6,098,520    
 17 Grapes 5,509,330    
 18 Hen Eggs 5,252,300    
 19 Cotton Lint 4,908,600    
 20 Lettuce 4,429,720 



You might want to play around with some of the data sets at this site,
such as the link to the "Major Commodity Producers" tables (over on
the left hand side of the page).  They present a host of useful data,
organized by various themes...make sure to have a look.



Most foods are included in the above tables, but fish
production/consumption information is listed separately.  You can find
the fish profile for the US here:



http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/en/USA/profile.htm



In particular, Section II includes the actual production data:

II. Fisheries data (2003)


Fish for direct human consumption  -- 3,420,000 MT

Fish for animal feed and other purposes -- 900,000 MT



This is the only readily-available breakout that I know of that
distinguishes human consumption from animal feed and other uses.


You can find fish-data for other countries here:


http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/fcp.asp
Fishery Country Profiles



I trust this information fully answers your question.

However, please don't rate this answer until you have everything you
need.  If there's anything more I can do for you, just post a Request
for Clarification, and I'm happy to assist you further.

pafalafa-ga


search strategy -- Used bookmarked site for the FAO

Great. Thank you.