The EU estimated agricultural balance sheets

In order to provide internal agro-economic modellers with a shared reference data source, the JRC and DG AGRI agreed in 2017 to construct a dataset to provide an approximation of the apparent use of several agricultural commodities at Member State level. This dataset was made publicly available so that the benefits can be shared with other modellers and with anyone interested in figures concerning EU agricultural production, consumption, and trade. During the five years next to its publication, this dataset has demonstrated to be a successful tool with increasing number of on-line visits. Many improvements were implemented. Additional agriculture sectors have been covered, new indicators were integrated. External factors like the Brexit imposed some adaptations. This new edition of the report became necessary. The user guide, the description of the methodology, and the description of the data transformation process have been revised. Attention is paid to the limitations of the methodology and to the cautions for using this data. Original contents not part of previous edition take into account the maturity developed during five years of history, and analyse the usage and diffusion of the tool, the communication challenges, the publication as open and FAIR data, the API for allowing machines to interact with the data, and the perspectives for future improvements.