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Trade of Aquatic Products: FAO Data

Source: R/fao_trade.R
load_fao_trade.Rd

This function returns the FAO statistics of the international trade of aquatic products ("Global aquatic trade - by species/commodity", FI_Trade): the quantity and value of the exports, imports and re-exports of each country by commodity and year, from 1976. Each commodity of the International Standard Statistical Classification of Fishery Commodities (ISSCFC) belongs to one ISSCAAP species group, so the trade can be compared with the catch of the same groups (see catch_trade()).

Usage

load_fao_trade(version = "latest", data_dir = fao_data_dir())

Arguments

version

The release, e.g. "2026.1.0". Default is "latest".

data_dir

The directory where the data is saved. Default is fao_data_dir().

Value

A data frame with one row per country, commodity, flow and year: Country..Name. (as in load_fao_data()), Commodity..Code. (ISSCFC), Commodity..Name., ISSCAAP.group..Code., ISSCAAP.group..Name. (as in the species groups of the catch data), Trade.flow ("Exports", "Imports" or "Re-exports"), Year, Quantity (tonnes, product weight), Value (thousand USD), Quantity.Type and Value.Type ("actual", "estimate", "partner data", ...). The attributes fao_version and source_url give the release.

What the data are

FAO compiles the data from the customs statistics of the United Nations Statistics Division and Eurostat, mapped to the ISSCFC; countries that do not report are filled with the reports of their trade partners (FAO metadata of the release). In release 2026.1.0:

  • 225 reporting countries, 1976-2024, about 1,200 commodities in use.

  • The quantity is the net product weight in tonnes (the weight of fillets, frozen fish, fishmeal, ...), not the live weight of the catch; FAO publishes no conversion factors with the data.

  • The value is in thousand US dollars, exports generally free on board (FOB) and imports with cost, insurance and freight (CIF).

  • Catch of a country's vessels landed in foreign ports counts as an export of that country.

  • Commodities do not tell whether the product was caught or farmed.

  • Few countries report re-exports separately (26 in 2024, not China), so most re-exports are counted as exports.

  • The status shows "partner data" for values of non-reporting countries taken from the reports of their partners (from 2019; such values are shown as "estimate" before 2019).

Trade between countries (by partner) is published only from 2019, in a separate file (FI_Trade_Partners), not read by this function.

When the computer is online, the newest release is used, downloaded and converted the first time (a 16 MB file; converting takes a minute) and saved in data_dir; offline, or with fao_settings(online = FALSE), the newest saved release is used.

References

FAO. Global aquatic trade statistics (FI_Trade), metadata of the release, and the ISSCFC and ISSCAAP classifications. https://www.fao.org/fishery/static/Data/

Coordinating Working Party on Fishery Statistics (CWP). Handbook of Fishery Statistics: fishery commodities classification (ISSCFC). https://www.fao.org/cwp-on-fishery-statistics/handbook/socio-economic-dimension/fishery-commodities-classification/en/

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
trade <- load_fao_trade()
norway <- subset(trade, Country..Name. == "Norway" & Trade.flow == "Exports" & Year == 2024)
head(norway[order(-norway$Value), c("Commodity..Name.", "Quantity", "Value")])
catch_trade("Norway", trade = trade)
} # }