1) FAO is granting free and open access to its central data repository, FAOSTAT, the world’s largest and most comprehensive statistical database on food, agriculture, and hunger.

2) FAO statistics on production of crops, fruits, livestock, oil crops, and others can be analyzed in Gapminder.

3) How many plants feed the world on Agricultural Biodiversity weblog.  They write:

Instead, they worked with national level Food Balance Sheets from FAO, and looked at the question in four ways to determine just how many species make up 90% of the total intake of food weight, calories, protein and fat in each country.

The result is “85 species commodities and 28 general commodities contribute 90% of national per capita supplies of food plants.” After a bit of tinkering, they come up with this final statement: “the total number of species commodities is 82. These consist of 103 species. Fifty-six of the species commodities, consisting of 75 species, account for 5% or more of the national supply of a nutritional category in at least one country.”

4) International Development Statistics is an online database of the volume, origin and types of aid and resource flows to over 150 developing countries. The data are collected from official statistical reports submitted to the OECD by members of its Development Assistance Committee and include figures on official development assistance, other official flows and private funding.