Beyond Numbers: USAID’s FEWS NET Data Unlocks Actionable Insights
Author: Avalon Gordy, Communications Specialist, FEWS NET Data, Learning, and Communications Hub
At the heart of USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) reporting lies cutting-edge, data-driven analysis, solidifying FEWS NET as a leading data provider in the fight against global food insecurity.
Forecasting future food emergencies requires a strong understanding of the systems and sectors that influence food security: markets and trade, cross-border trade flows, nutrition, regional livelihoods, agricultural production, climate and weather, conflict, and more.
For nearly 40 years, FEWS NET has utilized expert, innovative analyses of these topics to forecast acute food insecurity months in advance.
“FEWS NET’s projections reflect the depth and breadth of our data resources,” USAID BHA FEWS NET Program Manager Dr. Kevin Coffey said. “It’s because of the wide variety of data we have access to that we’re able to tell decision-makers when a food emergency is going to happen months ahead of time.”
These data resources, including market trends, price and exchange rates, trade flows, and agricultural statistics, are centrally stored in the FEWS NET Data Warehouse (FDW). This vast data reserve fuels the scenario development process used to produce FEWS NET’s reports and analyses, empowering analysts to develop informed, evidence-based assumptions to identify emerging food insecurity threats.
To align with USAID’s open data policy, FEWS NET now offers public access to all primary and owned data directly from the FDW via an Application Programming Interface (API) or through the FEWS NET Data Explorer (FDE), which currently houses roughly 21 million food security-related data points. FDE users can interact with, download, and save datasets in various formats for use in wider humanitarian efforts, a functionality intended to foster global collaboration through knowledge sharing and data transparency.
“A few years ago, the FEWS NET management team realized the wealth of data that was sitting with the FEWS NET project going back to the 1960s,” FEWS NET Principal Applications Architect Dr. Dave English said. “The decision was made to open this data up so anyone could use it as a global public good.”
Data-Driven Early Warning Yields Accuracy
While significant shocks can trigger food emergencies — such as ongoing conflict-driven acute food insecurity in Sudan — severe hunger crises often result from a combination of factors. FEWS NET’s markets and trade data are made available through non-governmental organization (NGO) partnerships, national sources, and primary data collected on the ground. This data helps FEWS NET analysts track market prices, domestic and cross-border trade flows, exchange rates, secondary price indices, and other critical indicators that can signal when access to affordable, nutritious food may be compromised.
FEWS NET’s country offices perform in-depth data reviews to assemble high-quality, country-specific market datasets that support integrated food security analysis. By prioritizing data collection to fill significant data gaps, FEWS NET ensures the resulting datasets are interoperable and analysis-ready.
FEWS NET also maintains one of the world’s largest subnational crop production datasets. This data is vital to assessing climate shock impacts on regional food security and is openly shared and easily accessible through an API. Leveraging this data allows FEWS NET analysts and food security experts to better understand how climate shocks can disrupt agricultural production and affect livelihoods.
“The public subnational database housed in the FDW is absolutely unprecedented,” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Assistant Research Scientist Dr. Weston Anderson said. “Many of the countries with the highest levels of food insecurity are neglected by researchers and academics for lack of available crop production data. FEWS NET has now collated that data and made it freely available for anyone to use. That is a momentous accomplishment.”
Data from FEWS NET’s scientific partnerships with organizations, including NASA, NOAA, USGS, the UCSB Climate Hazards Center, the University of Maryland-led NASA Harvest Program, and more, help analysts understand when a significant climate shock, such as a drought or flood, may be approaching. These scientists use a combination of satellite remote sensing, climate models, and agroclimatology data to regularly provide updates on climate and weather forecasts for FEWS NET-monitored regions.
With this diverse range of knowledge and data resources, FEWS NET produces regular reporting that helps to inform key decision-makers for humanitarian planning and responses in the world’s most food-insecure regions. This rang true when FEWS NET warned of El Niño-induced drought and related impacts on food security across Southern Africa in 2023.
“The FEWS NET subnational crop production data was critical for characterizing the likely impacts of El Niño on crop yields in real time,” Anderson said. “The subnational crop production data allowed the FEWS NET science team to accurately identify regions of likely crop failures nearly two months before official crop yield forecasts were available for many countries.”
Want to learn more? Register for an FDE account to access FEWS NET’s wealth of data for use in your own work. Subscribe to FEWS NET updates to receive agroclimatology and food security forecasts directly in your inbox, and follow FEWS NET on X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, and LinkedIn for the latest updates.
