ABSTRACT
Worldwide agricultural trade is the main theme of this chapter, the penultimate one, before the final discussion of food safety in Chapter 21. The following pages provide an overview where you will read about the international export and import of crops and animal products. We will study this in the form of leading exporting and importing countries, and the most traded products in terms of value and quantities. The major focus is on unprocessed foods, such as wheat and meat, but we will also touch on the trade in animal feed and fibres of vegetable and animal origin. Much of the reasoning is built up around statistics from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and from FAOSTAT, which you are already familiar with. You will be made aware of some peculiarities of trade statistics, for example that a country can export and import the same kind of food, and that this may be consumed in that country or just pass through its borders.
