Food balance sheets provide essential information on a country's food system through three components:

• Domestic food supply of the food commodities in terms of production, imports, and stock changes.
• Domestic food utilization which includes feed, seed, processing, waste, export, and other uses.
• Per capita values for the supply of all food commodities (in kilograms per person per year) and the calories, protein, and fat content.

The food balance sheet shows for each food item i.e. each primary commodity availablity for human consumption which corresponds to the sources of supply and its utilisation. The total quantity of foodstuffs produced in a country added to the total quantity imported and adjusted to any change in stocks that may have occurred since the beginning of the reference period gives the supply available during that period. On the utilisation side a distinction is made between the quantities exported, fed to livestock and used for seed, losses during storage and transportation, and food supplies available for human consumption. The per capita supply of each such food item available for human consumption is then obtained by dividing the respective quantity by the related data on the population actually partaking in it. Data on per capita food supplies are expressed in terms of quantity and by applying appropriate food composition factors for all primary and processed products also in terms of dietary energy value, protein and fat content.

Commodity balances show balances of food and agricultural commodities in a standardized form. The scope of standardization is to present these data in a less detailed form for a selected number of commodities without causing any significant loss of the basic variables monitoring the agricultural sector. The selected commodities include the equivalents of their derived products falling in the same commodity group, but exclude the equivalents of by-products and derived commodities, which through processing, change their nature and become part of different commodity groups. A number of commodity/item aggregates have been included to offer synthetic information. Some of these are included with the aim of simplifying the extraction of all component commodities. Data shown in the item aggregates represent the sum of the component commodities as presented in this domain (standardized form). Commodity coverage: The commodity list in this domain has been generally confined to primary commodities - except for sugar, oils and fats and beverages. Whenever possible trade in processed commodities is expressed in the originating primary commodity equivalent. Rice is expressed in milled equivalent..