DataM Provides Online Repository for Food, Nutrition Information

Data M web , created by the European Commission- Joint Research Centre, Institute of Perspective Technological Studies (Seville, Spain) thorough work with the PROGNOZ software company, provides an easy mechanism to visualize multiple datasets related to food security and nutrition.  Data M stands for Data on Agriculture, Trade, and Models, and the online data repository allows visualization in a number of ways, pulling data from a number of International Organizations (e, g., FAO and World Bank) and other relevant sources .

Under a number of broad themes (agricultural market outlook, agricultural trade, the macro-economic context, agricultural production, futures markets, and the bioeconomy), there is a range of predefined reports as well as easily adjustable queries (such as the one below showing calorie availability in 2011 in Africa south of the Sahara).

Daily Food Supply per Capita (kCal)

Source:  Data M, data provided by FAO Food Balance Sheets

The data is viewable by country(s), region, or globally, and for a range of years.  Site search tools make it easy to find topics of interest to the user.  Authorized users can sign up for free to use the site and can save reports in their account and publish these reports to share with others.   Since Data M hosts the data from multiple sources, those sources are provided as links in the meta data section. A news section keeps users informed of new software versions or new data.

Data M provides a convenient mechanism for viewing food and nutrition security-related data held by a range of agencies.  This convenience can greatly assist researchers and policy makers understand the context of their planned interventions and target gaps in knowledge.