FABIO v2: Food and Agriculture Biomass Input-Output Database

FABIO provides a comprehensive set of multi-regional physical supply-use (PSUT) and input-output tables (IOT) covering global food and agriculture flows. It integrates data from FAOSTAT, IEA, EIA, and UN Comtrade/BACI to map the global flow of agricultural biomass from extraction to final consumption.

This repository contains the R code used to generate the database.

🚀 Key Features of FABIO v2

• Broad Coverage: 181 regions (180 countries + 1 Rest of World).
• High Resolution: 119 processes and 123 commodities.
• Temporal Scope: Data coverage for the years 2010–2023.
• Allocation Methods: Includes both mass and value-based allocation versions for symmetric tables.
• Units: All values are in physical units (tonnes or heads) as specified in items.csv.
• Sustainability Metrics: including land use, water use, nutrient cycles (N/P), GHG emissions, and biodiversity indicators (MSA loss, PDF).

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📂 Database Structure

The database is provided in compressed .rds format, optimized for R. Most variables are organized as lists by year containing sparse matrices (using the Matrix package).

Component	Description
Z	Inter-commodity IO matrix (intermediate use). 22,263 x 22,263. Available as Z_mass and Z_value.
Y	Final demand matrix. Includes categories: Food, Other (non-food), Stock additions, and Tourist consumption.
X	Total output vector. The sum of intermediate and final use for all commodities.
L	Leontief inverse $(I - A)^{-1}$. Provided for both mass and value allocation versions.
E	Environmental extensions. 123 stressors x 22,263 products.

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🛠 Installation & Usage

All processing is performed in R. To read the database files, ensure you have the Matrix package installed.

# Example: Reading a FABIO rds file
data <- readRDS("Z_mass_2020.rds")

Auxiliary Metadata (CSV)

For indexing and classification, refer to the following auxiliary files:

• regions.csv: Country samples, ISO3 codes, and regional groupings.
• items.csv: Commodity definitions, units, and product groupings.
• io_labels.csv / su_labels.csv: Row and column labels for IO and Supply-Use tables.
• fd_labels.csv: Column descriptions for the Final Demand (Y) matrix.

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📜 License & Citation

License

This repository is distributed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 License.

• Non-commercial use only.
• Attribution required.
• Share-alike (derivative works must use the same license).

Citation

If you use FABIO in your research, please cite the following paper:

Bruckner, M., Wood, R., Moran, D., Kuschnig, N., Wieland, H., Maus, V., Börner, J. 2019. FABIO – The Construction of the Food and Agriculture Input–Output Model. Environmental Science & Technology 53(19), 11302–11312. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b03554

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📬 Access & Collaboration

• FABIO v1.1 (130 products, 1986-2013): Available on Zenodo.
• FABIO v2: Available upon request.

For database access, collaboration inquiries, or technical support, please contact Martin Bruckner at martin.bruckner@wu.ac.at.

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GitHub Repository: fineprint-global/fabio