Agricultural Production and Food Consumption in Western Europe

Excerpts from the report: The following is an account of results of work projects that have been carried on for a number of years in the Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations. Although this is mainly a report on the methodology employed and the statistical material used and computed, some of the substantive conclusions that emerge may be briefly summarized. The study is divided into five chapters. The first deals with OFAR's estimates of food balances, giving statistics or approximations of production, trade, and utilization of foodstuffs and feedstuffs, both in terms of total quantities and, for food uses, also of quantities per person per year. The second and third chapters of this study deal with the computation of indices of agricultural production and with estimates of food consumption, respectively. As to the consumption estimates, appraisals have been made not only of food consumption in terms of individual food commodities and in terms of calories, but also in terms of a quantity-quality index that combines data on quantities of food consumed with a measure of its qualitative composition. This quantity-quality index is the subject matter of the discussion in the fourth chapter. The fifth and final chapter of the present study gives a calculation of so-called degrees of food self-sufficiency for each of the Western European countries.