Dataset: FAOSTAT Metadata

Definitions and standards used in FAOSTAT

The dataset contains a selection of tables on worldwide crop and livestock production as well as macroeconomic and environmental indicators related to agriculture and forestry obtained from the statistical division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAOSTAT) [1].

The dataset contains social, environmental, and economic data and indicators of the whole world, directly or indirectly related to bees. Datasets are produced and maintained by the statistical division of an international organisation (FAO) and therefore allow comparison between countries.

The dataset contains 15 out of a total of 67 data tables contained in the bulk download provided by FAOSTAT which are considered to be relevant for bees (production of crops and livestock, value of production, prices, trade with crops and livestock, detailed trade matrices for each country and country groups/regions, consumer price indices, exchange rates, macroeconomic key indicators, pesticide inputs, pesticide indicators, population, land use, land use percentage shares, land cover and average temperature change). In addition, 7 tables containing definitions and standards provided by FAOSTAT have been included in the dataset (abbreviations, list of countries and country groups/regions, elements, items, flags and units used in the data tables).

This data is suited to produce concise tabular and graphical overviews and summaries on a range of social, economic, and ecologic parameters for stakeholders in beekeeping industry (e.g. organisations relying on monitoring of the market). Possible research questions include the following:

Monitoring the development of the European beekeeping industry and predicting future developments is an important prerequisite for individuals and organisations involved in the policy making process related to beekeeping and other agricultural activities. On a macroeconomic scale, data from international organisation such as statistical division of FAO (FAOSTAT) – despite shortcomings due to difficulties in standardisation, data quality and availability – ensure the best possible and freely available quality of information to compare countries and country groups. At lower levels (member states, regions), data from national statistical agencies should be used.

Data and metadata was obtained from the Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT) [1], the statistical data website of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 2022-03-29. Later versions of the database are therefore not considered. The entire normalized dataset was downloaded in bulk. Data is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo). In addition to this license, some database specific terms of use are listed: https://www.fao.org/contact-us/terms/db-terms-of-use/en/.

Data from imported for profiling into a SQL database (MariaDB foundation, Server-Version 10.4.24) running in a XAMPP environment (BitRock, version 3.3.0). Data was exported from the MySQL database to CSV format using utf-8 coding. Data profiling was performed according to SOP-005 Data profiling using phpMyAdmin (version 5.2.0).

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