Compare methods

	Food Balance Sheet Analysis	Foodshed Analysis
Field	Food Agriculture Studies	Food Agriculture Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2001	2009
Originator	Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)	Christian J. Peters, Nelson L. Bills, Jennifer L. Wilkins, Gary W. Fick & Arthur J. Lembo
Type	National commodity supply-utilization accounting for food availability	Spatial modelling pipeline for food-source areas and localization capacity
Seminal source	FAO (2001). Food Balance Sheets: A Handbook. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.	Peters, C. J., Bills, N. L., Lembo, A. J., Wilkins, J. L., & Fick, G. W. (2009). Mapping potential foodsheds in New York State: A spatial model for evaluating the capacity to localize food production. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 24(1), 72-84.
Aliases	FBS, FAO Food Balance Sheets, National Food Supply Accounting, Dietary Energy Supply Analysis	Foodshed Modelling, Foodshed Mapping, Food Self-Sufficiency Analysis, Localization Capacity Analysis
Related	3	4
Summary	Food Balance Sheet (FBS) analysis is FAO's framework for accounting for a country's food supply, codified in the 2001 handbook Food Balance Sheets: A Handbook and updated in FAO's 2017 methodology. For each commodity, the FBS balances the total supply available during a reference period — domestic production plus imports adjusted for stock changes — against all utilization: exports, animal feed, seed, processing, waste, other non-food uses, and finally the quantity available for human consumption. Dividing food available by population gives per capita supply, which is then converted, using food-composition factors, into Dietary Energy Supply (kilocalories per person per day) and protein and fat supply. The FBS underpins national-level food-security indicators, including the prevalence of undernourishment.	Foodshed analysis is a spatial method for understanding where a population's food comes from, or could come from, by analogy with a watershed: just as a watershed delineates the land that drains to a river, a foodshed delineates the land area capable of feeding a given population centre. Christian Peters, Nelson Bills, Jennifer Wilkins, Gary Fick and Arthur Lembo formalised the modern, spatially explicit version in 2009, mapping potential foodsheds in New York State by matching geographically distributed agricultural production capacity to the food demand of population centres and allocating supply by proximity. The result quantifies how much of a region's food needs could be met locally — its localization capacity and self-sufficiency — and which land areas would supply which cities. Foodshed analysis has become a core tool for assessing the feasibility and sustainability of regional and local food systems.