QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Myers, L. H. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Myers, L. H.

Food Consumption Data Needs for Food and Agricultural Policy¹

Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 108 Hutcheson Hall, Virginia Polytechnic and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0401

Food and agricultural policy strives to provide stable, safe, nutritional, and affordable food supplies with policies on farm income, low-income food security, food safety (including nutritional risk), and nutrition education. For each policy area, comparisons are made between food consumption data needs and information currently collected with four human nutrition monitoring system components administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Identified data gaps become the basis for recommendations for future data needs. Food consumption data are essential to management of programs. However, many food safety and nutritional well-being issues require specific food product consumption data for high risk groups. Sampling procedures are often too aggregate to meet these needs. Food consumed away-from-home is not well measured, yet this market segment now accounts for about half of all consumer food expenditures. Surveys should be designed to provide complementary and additive data. A premium should be placed on standardizing household description variables to enable "splicing" together data from different surveys. Survey continuity across time is essential. Data collection should be planned with funding limitations and respondent burden in mind so that a balance is achieved between survey objectives and the practical constraints of obtaining accurate data.

KEY WORDS: • food policy consumption data monitoring

¹ Presented at the "W.O. Atwater Centennial Celebration Symposium" held June 2–4, 1993 in Washington, D.C. The symposium was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the International Life Sciences Institute and the American Institute of Nutrition. Additional funding for this publication was provided by: Kellogg Company and the National Live Stock and Meat Board. Guest Editors for this supplement were: Gerald F. Combs, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi and Walter Mertz, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, Maryland.