Documentation
Description
International baseline projections indicate the possible long-term supply, demand, and trade for major agricultural commodities for major exporting and importing countries and regions. These projections provide foreign country details supporting the USDA’s Agricultural Projections report, released in February each year. The projections are based on specific assumptions about macroeconomic conditions, policy, weather, and international developments, with no domestic or external shocks to global agricultural markets. Examination of the long-term (10 years) agriculture projections, in addition to historic data, better inform decisions related to agricultural policy and business. Projections of key market indicators help decision makers evaluate the impact of various courses of action.
Scope/Coverage of Data
The International Baseline consists of 42 country- and region-specific models, which are used to generate 10-year projections. Each model contains up to 32 commodities or commodity aggregates, with an average of 12 commodities per model. The standard commodity set includes livestock products, grains, oilseeds and oilseed products, cotton, and sugar. The international baseline commodity projection data that can be downloaded include; barley, beef, corn, cotton, pork, poultry, rice, sorghum, soybeans, soybean meal, soybean oil, and wheat.
International Baseline Data Sets
Visualization: International Baseline Projections
| International baseline individual country and regional models ¹ |
|---|
| North America |
| Canada |
| United States |
| Europe |
| European Union |
| Other Europe |
| Other Former Soviet Union |
| Russia |
| Ukraine |
| Latin America |
| Argentina |
| Brazil |
| Central America & Caribbean |
| Cuba |
| Mexico |
| Other South America |
| Middle East |
| Iran |
| Iraq |
| Other Middle East |
| Saudi Arabia |
| Turkey |
| Africa |
| Egypt |
| Morocco |
| Nigeria |
| Other ECOWAS ² |
| Other North Africa |
| Other Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Republic of South Africa |
| Asia & Oceania |
| Australia |
| Bangladesh |
| Burma |
| China |
| Cambodia |
| Hong Kong |
| India |
| Indonesia |
| Japan |
| Malaysia |
| New Zealand |
| Other Asia & Oceania |
| Pakistan |
| Philippines |
| South Korea |
| Taiwan |
| Thailand |
| Vietnam |
| Remainder |
| Rest of World |
|
¹ Regional models are italicized ² Economic Community of West African States |
Regional Models are an aggregate of all the countries in the model. The regional models contain the following countries:
- Central America and Caribbean- The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, French West Indies, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, United States Virgin Islands
-
Other Asia and Oceania- Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei, Burma (excluding rice), Cambodia (excluding rice), Fiji, French Polynesia, Hong Kong (excluding beef, pork, poultry, wheat, and rice), India (for pork), Indonesia (for beef), Kiribati, Laos, Macau, Malaysia (for beef), Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand (excluding beef), North Korea, Pakistan (for pork), Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Vanuatu, Vietnam (for beef)
-
Other Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)- Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo
-
Other Europe- Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Iceland, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, United Kingdom
-
Other Former Soviet Union- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
-
Other Middle East- Bahrain, Iran (for cotton, and livestock products), Iraq (excluding grains), Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (for cotton, pork), Syria, Turkey (for pork), United Arab Emirates, Yemen
-
Other North Africa- Algeria, Egypt (for pork), Libya, Morocco (excluding wheat, rice, corn, barley, and sorghum), Tunisia
-
Other South America- Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela
-
Other Sub-Saharan Africa- Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Réunion, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
-
Rest of World- Soybeans and products: Other sub-Saharan Africa; Cotton: Russia; Beef and veal: Other sub-Saharan Africa; Pork: Other Middle East, Other North Africa, Other sub-Saharan Africa
| Standard commodity coverage in the country and regional models ¹ |
|---|
| Livestock products |
| Beef and veal |
| Pork |
| Poultry meat (chicken and turkey) |
| Eggs |
| Fluid milk |
| Grains |
| Rice |
| Wheat |
| Corn |
| Barley |
| Sorghum |
| Other coarse grains (oats, millet, rye, mixed grains) |
| Other crops |
| Cotton |
| Sugar |
| Oilseeds |
| Soybeans |
| Rapeseed |
| Sunflower seed |
| Other Oilseeds |
| Copra |
| Cottonseed |
| Groundnuts |
| Palm Kernel |
| Meals |
| Soybean meal |
| Rapeseed meal |
| Sunflower meal |
| Other meals |
| Copra meal |
| Cottonseed meal |
| Groundnuts meal |
| Palm kernel meal |
| Fishmeal |
| Oils |
| Soybean oil |
| Rapeseed oil |
| Sunflowerseed oil |
| Other oils |
| Coconut oil |
| Cottonseed oil |
| Groundnut oil |
| Palm oil |
| Olive oil |
| ¹ All commodities are not necessarily included in each country or regional model |
The international baseline models used to create the 10-year projections include supply, demand, price, trade, macroeconomic, and policy variables. Below is a categorized table of select key variables used in the models.
| Model variables ¹ |
|---|
| Supply |
| Area harvested |
| Yield |
| Production |
| Beginning stocks |
| Ending stocks |
| Birth rate |
| Breeding herd |
| Inventory |
| Demand |
| Total food demand |
| Per capita food demand |
| Total consumption |
| Feed demand |
| Seed, industrial and waste |
| Macroeconomic |
| Gross domestic product (GDP) |
| Per capita GDP |
| GDP deflator |
| Exchange rates |
| Population |
| Consumer price indices |
| Trade |
| Imports |
| Exports |
| Prices |
| World prices |
| Border prices |
| Transportation costs |
| Support prices |
| Guarantee prices |
| Petroleum prices |
| Policies |
| Tariffs |
| Subsidies |
| Taxes |
| Tariff-rate quota (TRQ) |
| Exchange rates |
|
¹ All model variables are not listed, only select key model variables |
Methods
The models use economic behavioral relationships to project production, use, and trade quantities based on the world and domestic commodity market prices and assumed macroeconomic conditions. Domestic market prices are usually linked to world prices, but the models filter the world prices through import and export tariffs and domestic agricultural policy variables such as support prices and producer and consumer subsidies.
The Excel-based country and regional model equations are extracted, converted to Fortran, and run together with a linking procedure to allow a global solution for equilibrium prices and trade. The linking method iteratively adjusts world prices until imports and exports balance across all countries for each major agricultural commodity market. The solution algorithm uses a numerical version of Newton’s method, with each slope (trade change versus price change) observed from the previous price-adjustment iteration. The price adjustments are repeated within Gauss-Seidel loops until all commodity markets are simultaneously cleared (meaning that world imports and exports are balanced). During the solution, each country model receives the adjusted world prices and responds, as domestic prices change in response to world price changes, generating changes in its production, consumption, imports, exports, and other variables.
The primary source of historical supply and demand data is the USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Production, Supply and Distribution (PSD) database. The database includes most grains, oilseeds and products, cotton, sugar, livestock, and livestock products. Supply-side variables include beginning stocks or animal inventory, area harvested or slaughter, yield, production, and imports. Demand-side variables include food, feed, industrial use, other use, ending stocks, and exports.
Some livestock product data are unavailable or no longer are updated for several country/commodity pairs in the PSD dataset. To include more market participants, the missing data may be pulled from the Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT) for food balances, livestock production, and livestock trade. The commodities considered are beef and veal, pork, poultry (chicken and turkey) meat, eggs, and lamb and mutton. Any selection of FAOSTAT data is made across the supply and use attributes and years for an entire country/commodity pair. FAOSTAT data series may be used if they are at least as recent as the corresponding PSD data series. PSD is selected as the source where PSD contains current meat data, since the final data years in FAOSTAT end earlier than the final data years for currently updated PSD series.
*For more information on the methods used in the international baseline projection process, please see USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) Technical Bulletin Number 1951: The ERS Country-Commodity Linked System: Documenting Its International Country and Regional Agricultural Baseline Models
And in Technical Bulletin Number 1956: Structure of the USDA Livestock and Poultry Baseline Model
Strengths and Limitations
Strengths
The international baseline projections are among a limited number of long-term international agricultural projections produced by USDA. The modeling system links countries and regions to better reflect market conditions for the 42 select exporting and importing countries and regions. While the models can be run in isolation, in most cases the models are solved simultaneously across 24 commodity markets, obtaining equilibrium world prices and balanced trade.
Limitations
The projections only include policies that are in place or are already expected to be implemented as of October of the most recent year. Critical long-term assumptions are made for U.S. and international macroeconomic conditions, U.S. and foreign agricultural and trade policies, and growth rates of agricultural productivity in the United States and abroad. The baseline process is undertaking assumptions that no domestic or external shocks during the projection period would affect global agricultural supply and demand. Changes in these assumptions can significantly affect the projections, and actual conditions that emerge will alter the outcomes.
Resources:
ERS:
- International Macroeconomic Data Set
- World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates at a Glance
- Baseline Questions & Answers
- Commodity Outlook
- Macroeconomics and Agriculture
Other:
Recommended Citation:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. International Baseline Data.