Food Balance Sheet Analysis

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.