Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Statistics Division
FAOSTAT agrifood emissions, livestock emissions, emissions intensities, land use and food loss
Five FAOSTAT domains. Emissions totals (GT): CO2, CH4, N2O and CO2-equivalent (AR5 GWP100) emissions in kilotonnes for agrifood systems (farm gate, land-use change, pre- and post-production) and for all IPCC sectors, by country and region, 1961-2023, with two sources per value ("FAO TIER 1" estimates and "UNFCCC" country submissions) and projection rows for 2030 and 2050 in the same file. Emissions from livestock (GLE): enteric fermentation and manure emissions by species, Tier 1. Emissions intensities (EI): farm-gate emissions (kt CO2eq, AR5) and emissions per kg of product for 14 commodities (meat and milk of cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats, pig and chicken meat, camel milk, hen eggs, rice and cereals excluding rice), 1961-2023. Land use (RL): agricultural land, cropland, permanent meadows and pastures, forest land (from FRA) and land area in 1000 ha, 1961-2024 (forest land to 2025). SDG indicators (SDGB): 12.3.1a food loss percentage (share of food lost from post-harvest up to, but not including, retail, weighted by economic value) and the Global Food Loss Index (2015 = 100), total and by commodity group, 2015-2024.
Numbers published from it
- Food lost between harvest and retail (SDG 12.3.1a)
- Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood systems, by country
- Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood systems, by process
- Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood systems, by stage: within the farm gate (including savanna fires and drained peat soils), land-use change, and before and after the farm
- Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood systems, world
- On-farm methane and nitrous oxide from animals, manure, fertiliser and rice fields, by farm product (14 products)
- On-farm methane and nitrous oxide per kilogram of farm product, from animals, manure, fertiliser and rice fields (14 products)
- Methane from farm animals' digestion and manure, by animal
- Methane from livestock, world
- Agricultural land, cropland, pasture and forest area
- Agricultural land, cropland, pasture and forest as a share of land area
Licence and credit
- What the terms say
“Unless specified otherwise in their metadata or webpage, all datasets disseminated through FAO corporate statistical databases (see examples in Annex 1) are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0)”
From the producer's terms, checked 2026-10-04; re-checked automatically every week.
- Credit we give
- FAO. {year}. FAOSTAT. Accessed on {date_accessed_long}. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
- Copy of the raw file
- Allowed: we keep a public copy of every version we use.
- Cite as
- FAO. {year}. FAOSTAT. Accessed on {date_accessed_long}. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
Files
Climate Change: Agrifood systems emissions: Emissions totals (GT). Zipped normalized CSV (latin-1): Area, Item, Element, Year, Source, Unit, Value, Flag. Elements include "Emissions (CO2eq) (AR5)" in kt. Rows run 1961-2023 plus projection years 2030 and 2050, which are not published.
https://bulks-faostat.fao.org/production/Emissions_Totals_E_All_Data_(Normalized).zipClimate Change: Agrifood systems emissions: Emissions from Livestock (GLE). Zipped normalized CSV (latin-1) of CH4 and N2O from enteric fermentation and manure (management, left on pasture, applied to soils) by species, with livestock numbers, Tier 1.
https://bulks-faostat.fao.org/production/Emissions_livestock_E_All_Data_(Normalized).zipClimate Change: Agrifood systems emissions: Emissions intensities (EI). Zipped normalized CSV: Area, Item Code, Item Code (CPC), Item, Element, Year, Unit, Value, Flag (no Source column). Elements 723113 "Emissions (CO2eq) (AR5)" in kt, 71761 "Emissions intensity" in kg CO2eq/kg of product and 5510 "Production" in t, for 14 commodities, 1961-2023. Farm-gate emissions only: enteric CH4, manure management CH4 and N2O, N2O from manure left on pasture and applied to soils, and N2O from crop residues, their burning and synthetic fertiliser allocated to crops, plus rice paddy CH4; no on-farm energy, drained organic soils, savanna fires, land-use change or pre- and post-production. Methodological note: https://files-faostat.fao.org/production/EI/EI_e.pdf (release October 2025), which says the values should not be compared with life-cycle assessments.
https://bulks-faostat.fao.org/production/Environment_Emissions_intensities_E_All_Data_(Normalized).zipLand, Inputs and Sustainability: Land Use (RL). Zipped normalized CSV (latin-1) of land-use areas in 1000 ha and shares, 1961-2024; forest land to 2025 is taken by FAO from FRA 2025.
https://bulks-faostat.fao.org/production/Inputs_LandUse_E_All_Data_(Normalized).zipSDG Indicators (SDGB). Zipped normalized CSV (latin-1) of all SDG series under FAO custodianship; we use item codes 24044 (12.3.1a food loss percentage, %) and 24045 (12.3.1a Global Food Loss Index), total and by commodity group, 2015-2024.
https://bulks-faostat.fao.org/production/SDG_BulkDownloads_E_All_Data_(Normalized).zipFAOSTAT bulk-download catalogue: DatasetCode, DatasetName, DateUpdate, FileSize and FileLocation for every domain. Supplies {year} (DateUpdate) for the citation.
https://bulks-faostat.fao.org/production/datasets_E.json
Status
- Programme
- Updated on FAO's annual cycle: Land Use on 2 October 2026 and SDG indicators on 29 September 2026; the emissions domains (GT, GLE) were last updated 28 October 2025 with data to 2023. FAO is not on the January 2026 US withdrawal memorandum (FR Doc 2026-00976); UNFCCC is, which concerns the "UNFCCC" source rows in GT.
- Updates
- Annual per domain; emissions domains each October-November, Land Use and SDG indicators around late September. DateUpdate in datasets_E.json changes with each release, but zips are sometimes re-uploaded later.
- Next release
- 2026-10-31: FAO's 2026 release calendar lists FAOSTAT Emissions totals and Emissions from Livestock (data to 2024) under October 2026 without a day; 31 October is the end of that window.
- Last check
- Fetched (2026-10-05T14:41:16Z)