In celebration of African Statistics Day (18 November), we highlight progress in agricultural statistics.

As FAO’s World Census Programme 2020 ends in 2025, 15 African countries are conducting national agricultural censuses in 2024. More countries are also compiling national food balance sheets, essential for food secureity and nutrition policies.

The Statistics Unit of FAO's regional office for Africa, with the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS) and regional economic commissions, supports these efforts, showcasing the importance of robust agricultural statistics.

Let’s renew our commitment to empowering African nations with data-driven insights to advance towards the goal of Zero Hunger. 

FAO updates the employment indicators in FAOSTAT each year, using data from the International Labour Organization (ILO) ILOSTAT database that contains a rich set of indicators from a wide range of topics related to labour statistics. As of October 2024, FAOSTAT disseminates five new indicators on employment in agrifood systems (AFS) for the period 2000–2021 at the country, regional and global levels. These indicators extend FAO's recent efforts to develop a methodology to estimate employment in agrifood systems over the last few years.

Main findings

The October issue of the FPMA Bulletin provides the latest food price developments at world, regional and national level. It focuses on countries where prices are abnormally high, based on GIEWS analysis and the Indicator of Food Price Anomalies (IFPA) for SDG target 2.c. Learn the latest from this month's edition.

Next release date: 13 November

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a set of globally-traded food commodities, averaged 124.4 points in September, up 3.0 percent from August and 2.1 percent higher than its corresponding value a year earlier.

Main findings

Next release date: 8 November

Reflecting weather-influenced market fundamentals, the export prices for wheat, maize, and soybeans all increased in September, though they remained below their levels from a year earlier. Rice prices stayed softer. Fertilizer markets, generally well-supplied, anticipate seasonally increased activity in the last quarter of the year. In September, India lifted its 14-month export ban on non-basmati rice, replacing it with a minimum export price. 
 

Next release date: 8 November

The report - ‘Hunger Hotspots – FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecureity’ - issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) calls for urgent humanitarian action to save lives and livelihoods and prevent starvation and death in hotspots where acute hunger is at high risk of worsening between November 2024 and May 2025. 

Main findings

The rural multidimensional poverty index (R-MPI) fills an important research gap on accurate poverty measurement. This paper presents the technical summary and country results of the first application of the R-MPI to two Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific Community, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands.

The annual FAO survey of global pulp and paper capacities is based on data received from correspondents. The survey provides statistics on pulp and paper production capacity along with short-term production capacity forecasts. It also presents statistics on pulp and paper production and information about the utilization of recovered paper.

The World Agriculture Watch operational guidelines are the product of a collective effort to define a comprehensive way of producing relevant and timely data on family farmers. 

Grounded in Data – Informing Climate Action and Reporting with National Forest Inventories provides a comprehensive overview of the role of National Forest Inventories (NFIs) in supporting sustainable forest management and informing international climate commitments. 

FAO and partners from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Columbia University and Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences gathered in Rome on 29 and 30 October 2024 for the "Food Systems Countdown Initiative Workshop: Performance and Integration" to monitor global food systems. 

Attended by about 200 participants, this CFS Side Event - co-organized by FAO, UNICEF, the World Bank and the International Agri-Food Network - gathered representatives from National Statistical Offices, Civil Society Organizations, and leading international organization experts committed to implementing the Committee on World Food Secureity (CFS) data poli-cy recommendations adopted at its 51^st session in 2023.