The average food supply in Iceland from 1995 to 2021 was approximately 1,200 kg per person a year (tolerance 400 kg). The breakdown of food by category was generally 30% vegetables and plant products, 36% fish and products from the sea and lakes, 28% meat and other animal products from land and 5% drinks, dough and other mixtures from biomass.
New experimental statistics which attempts to assess the supply of food in the Icelandic economy is now published on the Statistics Iceland website. The statistics is based on the Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts. The goal of the project is to use this base with an additional breakdown and leverage data that Statistics Iceland has access to in order to assess the availability of food. In this project, a European-oriented definationis made on what counts as food, along with information on the use of raw materials that was taken from the publications of the Norwegian Food Agency and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
As expected, the calculated supply of fish is very unstable between years. This is due to the uncertainty when calculating quantities based on the weight of raw materials, as well as the fact that catch figures and export figures are both large. In the model here, a basic decision is made according to fish species and process allocation to estimate the conversion from raw material to food. It is hoped that an improved model can reduce this uncertainty in the future. The category "Beverages, pastes and other mixtures from biomass" also has a known shortcoming in the figures, as information on the production of soft drinks and alcoholic beverages was limited.
In the results of the statistics, food production is differentiated according to the country of origin of raw materials. This division does not reflect the actual production process of a food product, but offers a useful distinction. A Sankey flowchart from values for 2021 shows how this division can be used.
DP here represents production from domestic raw materials, IP is production from imported raw materials, IMP is imports of manufactured goods and EXP is exports. Food availability can be visually analyzed by inspecting the difference between inflows (ribbons on the left side of squares) and outflows (ribbons on the right side of squares) for food classes. Food supply is then DP + IMP + IP – EXP.
Food independence can be assessed here by calculating the ratio: S = (DP - EXP)/(DP + IP + IMP). This ratio approaches unity if the food is mainly produced from domestic raw materials and the production is not made for export. The value can become negative if the exported product originates from imported raw materials, or if information is missing on domestic raw material procurement.
The category F142 is here a negative number. This category includes various types of marine plants, shellfish, crustaceans and marine mammals, where information on the amount of raw materials may be lacking in the data collection at Statistics Iceland. However, data on the import and export of the same products is available. The exported product is also sometimes in oil or brine, which sometimes makes the exported product heavier than the raw material. Food independence in category F141 is not as high as one might expect, or around 0.2. From an accounting point of view, the food supply of fish depends on exports and is therefore not calculated as independent, although it does not take many freezer trawlers to fill free space in Icelandic households.
The metrics here could be useful in the connection with discussions on food safety. Food safety, however, is more complex in nature, as it should be assessed how dependent actual production is on imported products. A more detailed description and data from this project are available on the experimental statistics website. These numbers should be viewed in the light of the fact that the project is still in development and will hopefully be improved in the future. All suggestions and discussions on the subject welcome.