FEWS NET Product and Service Code Structure

FEWS NET uses a modified product and services coding system based on the UN Central Product Classification (CPC) V2 codes. This approach was adopted following a 2014 effort between FAO, WFP, and FEWS NET to define and meet each institution’s product coding needs within the general bounds of a common product coding structure. The agreed-upon common framework promotes consistency and comparability among the codes used to classify crop production and monitor food prices across these organizations. This framework is described in a collaborative report published in 2014 by the UN-based Food Security Information Network, “Review of Global Food Prices Databases: Overlaps, Gaps and Opportunities to Improve Harmonization.”

FEWS NET product and service code structure

FEWS NET product codes are derived from existing CPC V2 codes and built in a consistent manner consisting of three parts:

1. Each code begins with a one-character alpha-code prefix that FEWS NET uses to split its product and service codes into 4 distinct sub-groups:

   1. R: raw, un-processed agricultural product

   2. L: animal/livestock product

   3. P: manufactured or processed product

   4. S: service product

2. This is followed by a 2- to 5-character numeric code taken directly from the CPC.

3. FEWS NET appends a two-character alpha code (e.g. AA) to the end of each to allow for easy differentiation between sub-types of products.

FEWS NET’s modifications to the well known product and services coding standard meet the following objectives:

1. Preserve a link between local product names and descriptions and a more global classification of products, allowing appropriate terminology to be used at each level of discussion/investigation.

2. Recognize, group, and distinguish between specific products that play a role in the food security status of a population group or geographic area.

3. Differentiate specific crop plants from others on the basis not only of genetic features but also non-genetic features, often locally identified (taste, color, smell, mouth-feel, health benefits, preparation practices, market preferences, etc.).

By beginning with an alpha-numeric code, FEWS NET’s coding structure also avoids losing the initial “0” of many CPC V2 crop codes when working in Excel. 

FEWS NET’s approach provides flexibility in coding a large number of local product types with different names and codes. To make comparisons at a more global level, however, you may need to use a select portion of the code. For example, to examine how much wheat was produced in the world in 2016, the code R01112 can be used without the AA suffix letters. 

View the classified product list

A list of FEWS NET’s product codes can be accessed in CSV and HTML formats. You can also search and filter the classified product list using the API.

Crop codes

FEWS NET’s coding system, like the CPC system it has been adapted from, classifies agricultural crops by their uses, including the following distinctions:

• Cereals are differentiated from the common grouping of vegetables and fruits because they fulfill different purposes for human consumption and health.

• Products consumed by humans are distinguished from fodder used for animals.

• Leafy vegetables are distinguished from stalk vegetables and others that are consumed for their root or for the flower they produce. 

• Spices are differentiated from root crops and from other crops used to produce alcoholic drinks. 

• Some crops produce medicinal products and scents, and others produce fabric and matter for consumption in a smokeable form.    

The table below shows the FEWS NET code for different agricultural crop categories:

The expected precision of a crop coding system

Crop coding systems provide value in broadly grouping crop products by features that are considered important by users. Each crop classification system represents, to some degree, the needs to which it is being put, and a certain amount of imprecision and useful subjective bias in the categories is expected.

There are several fundamental reasons why a crop classification system is unlikely to ever produce an objectively perfect way of classifying crops into mutually exclusive categories.

• Genetic relationships: Similar crop plants may vary significantly in their exact genetic make-up, just like apparently different crop plants (e.g. broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustard) may share so many genetic features between them that it is difficult to identify a firm genetic boundary between one or the other. Defining that genetic boundary between one plant and another similar one has always been difficult because at some level, most crops are hybrids of others. Genetic differences have become even more difficult to use as a base for classification with the rise of human-engineered gene transfer and hybridization. Note that both the CPC and FEWS NET crop coding systems are based more on how a plant is used, rather than what its genes are.  

• Human perception: Human perceptions play an important role in defining a crop. Food preferences and market prices often perceive slight but extremely important differences in non-genetic crop features of genetically identical crops like the common bean, which FEWS NET codes as R01701AA.  The common bean’s genetically based scientific name is Phaseolus vulgaris, but at the dinner table or in the market, it may be called black, red, yellow, white, kidney, navy, cannellini, alubia, turtle, pinto, or hundreds of other names. And because they are so differently preferred, priced, and consumed, the FEWS NET coding often gives them different two-character suffixes to distinguish them as slightly different but closely related forms of the R01701AA common bean.

• Multiple uses: Many crops have different uses and are therefore given a different crop code for each use.  For example, the utility of a grain of corn is very different if it is used for preparing a morning breakfast food versus its use as a fodder crop for animals, and each important use has a different code for FEWS NET’s food security-related purpose. Notably, many vegetables may have different FEWS NET codes depending upon whether they are consumed by their root, stem, leaves, flower, fruit, etc.

• Multiple systems: There is not one single system of crop classification that everyone subscribes to for identifying crop plants. There are many. Even the definitive scientific binomial names we value to identify plants (e.g., Triticum aestivum or common wheat) were originally proprietary terms used by individual researchers, and many crops have more than one binomial name.  

Future expansion

Based upon crop data gathered from agricultural production statistics for more than 152 countries and other reporting entities, more than 14,500 crop names have been coded and associated with one or more of 2,500 scientific binomials (genus + species name) that are used by FEWS NET to identify them in a global environment. English, French and Spanish names predominate, but many come from other languages.

More than 40,000 other crop names have been associated with their scientific binomial and could be provided a FEWS NET crop code if needed.