TY - JOUR
T1 - Analysis combining the multiple FAO Food Balance Sheet datasets may produce incorrect results
AU - Vonderschmidt, Alexander
AU - Arendarczyk, Bart
AU - Jaacks, Lindsay
AU - Bellows, Alexa
AU - Alexander, Peter
PY - 2024/2/1
Y1 - 2024/2/1
N2 - Recent methodological changes to the food balance sheets published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)1 are leading to potential incorrect research findings and conclusions. The FAO offers open access to a large-scale, standardised food and agriculture dataset for more than 245 countries and territories, with annual panel data from 1961.1 The data, known as food balance sheets (FBS), are crucial to monitoring long-term trends in national food supply and tracking hundreds of edible commodities—termed items—which include, for example, meats, cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, vegetable oils, and butter. A 2020 review found more than 1300 publications that had used FBS data,2 for example, to predict micronutrient security,3 quantify food waste,4 and identify associations between diet, trade, and environmental factors
AB - Recent methodological changes to the food balance sheets published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)1 are leading to potential incorrect research findings and conclusions. The FAO offers open access to a large-scale, standardised food and agriculture dataset for more than 245 countries and territories, with annual panel data from 1961.1 The data, known as food balance sheets (FBS), are crucial to monitoring long-term trends in national food supply and tracking hundreds of edible commodities—termed items—which include, for example, meats, cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, vegetable oils, and butter. A 2020 review found more than 1300 publications that had used FBS data,2 for example, to predict micronutrient security,3 quantify food waste,4 and identify associations between diet, trade, and environmental factors
U2 - 10.1016/S2542-5196(23)00276-0
DO - 10.1016/S2542-5196(23)00276-0
M3 - Comment/debate
SN - 2542-5196
VL - 8
SP - 1
EP - 3
JO - The Lancet Planetary Health
JF - The Lancet Planetary Health
IS - 2
ER -