Food & Agriculture: shopping at the global marketplace
GEOG 111 Exercise #4 - 70 points
Instructor:  P. Kaldjian

This exercise has some similarities to exercise #2. This time, however, we are interested in the sources of our food.  Specifically, the series of questions is to help us think about the extent to which places consume from and produce for the global marketplace, where food comes from and why it comes from there.  

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, world trade in agricultural, fisheries and forestry products totals some $460 billion annually. Food is moving everywhere, yet, in a world of plenty, there were still around 840 million undernourished people in 1998-2000, 799 million in the developing countries, 30 million in the countries in transition and 11 million in the world's core; progress in reducing global hunger has all but stopped (FAO, 2002 ). While daily calorie supply per person worldwide was about 110% of the overall requirement already 10 years ago (New Internationalist, 1993), around 15% of the world’s people still do not get enough to eat. And recently, world food prices have shot up significantly. What are the patterns? What are the causes and consequences?

For the following questions, type your answers onto the answer sheet that has been prepared for you.

The sources of our food

1. In terms of calories/capita/day, how much food is available to each person in the United States per day on the average? 
2. From the food balance sheet, identify and list all the agricultural products (in the blue shaded rows) for which the United States imports at least as much as it produces domestically.
3. Now, in the same way, look at the food balance sheet for Guatemala, 2003.  How does Guatemala’s  caloric intake compare with the USA’s and with the worldwide recommended average number of calories, roughly 2400 per person per day.

II.  Next, go to the trade data/BICO reports Website of the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Research Service.  Once here, from the list under Option 1 – Search by Commodities, select bananas and plantains.  Then click on the Search button. On the next page that pops up, click on Calendar Year.   You will then have in front of you the last five years of imports of bananas and plantains, ranked by country (in terms of value).

4. Identify the three countries from which the United States imported the most bananas and plantains (by value) in the year 2007.
5. Back up and repeat the search for cocoa beans. From which three countries did the United States import the most cocoa beans (by value) in the year 2007?

6. From which three countries did the United States import the most cocoa paste and cocoa butter (by value) in the year 2007? Notice that the leading supplier is about as much as the next three!

7. What might explain the difference between leading supplier(s) of cocoa beans and those that supply cocoa paste/butter?  In other words, wouldn't you expect them to be the same country?  Why aren't they?

8. From which three countries did the United States import the most coffee beans (unroasted, by value) in the year 2007?

9. Go back to the FAO site and click on Trade on the blue bar at the top of the page. Then, click on Trade STAT on the green bar, then on detailed trade data on the orange bar. Make sure countries/years is selected. Select Import Value under subject and Coffee, Green under commodity. Highlight the United States and select the years 1997-2005 (select 2005, hold the shift key down, slide the scroll thing down to 1997 and select 1997 -- all years should be highlighted). Click on Show Data.  Until 2003, the value of coffee imports dropped every year.  Why? Give two possible explanations. Then, why has the total value of coffee been increasing since then? Try changing the Subject category to Import quantity and Avg Import Unit Value to see if that helps you come up with possible explanations.

10.  Now, go back to the FAS Bico reports, to Option 2 – Search by Countries.  Select *All Countries* and hit the Search button.  First go to Calendar Year for exports, and then Calendar Year for imports.  Compare them to answer the following questions for 2007. 

     a. What agricultural products does the US export the most (by value -- choose from bulk, intermediate and consumer-oriented products)

     b. What agricultural products does the US import the most (by value-- choose from bulk, intermediate and consumer-oriented products)?

     c. What patterns do you observe and what explains them -- that is, think about what the United States specializes in and produces for the world marketplace and why?  Come up with at least 2 reasonable explanations.

III.  Now, return again to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s FAOSTAT database and click on ProdSTAT on the blue bar across the top, then Crops from the orange bar. Make sure Countries/Years is selected, and select Production Quantity (tonnes) under subject and bananas under commodity. Select all the countries (From the list of countries, select Afghanistan, hold the shift key down, slide the scroll thing down to the end of the countries and select Zimbabwe -- all countries should be highlighted). Choose the year 2006.  Click on Show Data.

11. Which countries are the world’s four leading banana producers (by quantity)?

12. Does the United States import bananas from the main banana producers (compare to 4 above)?  Why or why not, do you think?

13. Repeat the search for cocoa beans. Which are the four biggest cocoa bean producers in the world?

14. Repeat the search for coffee, green. Which are the three biggest raw coffee bean producers in the world?

15. How are the top three coffee bean producers in the world different from the top three in 1990? Why is this and how might this be related to 9 above?

16. Regarding tree nuts, which country is the biggest producer of: a.) Hazelnuts b.) Pistachios c). Cashew nuts?
17. Which 6 countries are the greatest producers of wheat?

18. Now, change the search to commodities/years and select area harv(ested) as the subject and Guatemala as the country. Using the shift key again, highlight all the commodities and choose the year 2006.  Click on Show Data.  Compare and comment on the area dedicated to producing export crops (coffee, spices, rubber, sesame seeds, bananas, etc)  and those dedicated to basic food crops in light of the fact that Guatemalans don't have enough to eat, and we here in the US have plenty.  Refer back to Guatemala's Food Balance sheet if necessary.

IV.  Again, go to Trade (from blue bar across the top) data base.  Click on TradeSTAT from the green bar and Detailed Trade Data from the orange bar. Choose Exports Quantity from the subject, wheat from the commodity, highlight all the countries and choose the year 2005.

19. Which six countries are the world’s leading  exporters of wheat (by quantity)?
20. Explain the difference between the biggest producer of wheat and the biggest exporter of wheat (See Question 17).  What do you think is going on?

21. Change the subject to Import Quantity. What countries are the six leading importers of wheat (by quantity)?

22. Click on Trade on the blue bar at the top, then scroll down to the Indicator Tables. Click on the appropriate table to find out which country is the greatest exporter by value of meat (2004)?

IV. According to The "Banquet de l'Humanité," people around the world eat according to their income, their food resources and their cultural background. To help us understand this, we will use FAO data to make food consumption models for three countries around the world (click here for examples). You will then compare them to the United States. The first two food consumption models will be for Guatemala and Cote d'Ivoire; the third will be for a country of your choice.

To make the models, you will use data from the the 2003 archived Food Balance data from FAO and place it in the Excel worksheet that has been prepared for you (worksheet). By filling in the worksheet, you will generate the data you need to create the Food Consumption Models for Guatemala, Cote d'Ivoire and the country of your choice. To find the data you need, generate a Food Balance Sheet for Guatemala, Cote d'Ivoire and the country of your choice, just as you did for #1 above.

For each row in your worsheet, you are to fill in the calories/capita/day with data from the Food Balance Sheet. for example, cereals for Guatemala would be 1186.53, roots & tubers would be 15.92, and so on. Be sure to combine fruits with vegetables and nuts; add together meat with eggs. For dairy products combine Butter/ghee with cream and milk. (NOTE: If you open the table and see one of the columns already filled in for Turkey, click on the tab at the bottom edge of the spread sheet labeled GEOG 111 #4 Worksheet.)

The Excel program (the spread sheet in which you entered the data) can make the Food Consumption Model for you. After you have finished filling in Table 1, Table 2 is automatically filled in for you. to make the Food Consumption Model, carefully carry out the following steps for Table 1.
1. Highlight the rows and columns for all of your data, including the row and column names. This should be columns A-E, rows 6-10 in Table 1;
2. From the blue bar across the top, click on INSERT. From the icons that pop up, in the section entitled Charts, click Other Charts. From the pop-down menu that appears, go to where it says Radar, and clicked on the third one with filled polygons. Voila. A food consumption model should pop up for you, one that shows all four of the countries in your table. If one or another of your countries is blocked by the others, you can make a couple of charts with only two countries each. Or, you can make the color transparent so you can see through some of them. If you want to change the scale, double click on the numbers along the axis and change the axis options.

At the bottom edge of your Excel worksheet, click on Example to see how your work should look. I have used the country of Turkey as an example (you are to choose a different country).

Follow the steps above for Table 2. This will show the proportion of calories others eat in relationship to how much we eat here in the United States.

Print off a nice copy of your tables and of each Food Consumption Model (you may want to cut and past them into a word document).

23. Based on your food consumption models for each country, and other information from this assignment and the course, how do these demonstrate that people eat according to their income, their food resources (their environment and geography, really) and their culture? Be sure to look at the sub categories. For example, the cereals eaten in each country differ. Why?
24. Include final thoughts or a response to what you have learned.

You are to turn in your typed answer sheet, your filled in work sheet, and your food consumption models. Staple them together.

Good Job.