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Photo: Haanofonua derivative work: Massimo Telò · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons, shown in greyscale
Topic 13 of 18 · Country Index 2026
Tonga: Food & Agriculture
What does a country grow, and what does it take to grow it?
Tonga is placed 112th of 175 countries on food & agriculture in the Country Index 2026, from 2 of its 4 key statistics. Readings behind it: Organic Agricultural Area 0.92 (2024); Agriculture Orientation Index 0.17 (2024).
Food & Agriculture
112th
of 175 countries placed
Placed from 2 of 4 key statistics
01The evidence
The 4 key statistics that decide it
Only these place Tonga on food & agriculture — one vote each. Every value is the publisher’s own, read at the edition the Country Index 2026 used; the grey ticks are every other country it was compared with, lowest on the left.
Key 1 of 4
Cereal Yield
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Why it is a key: How much food a hectare of land produces: the clearest single measure of how productively a country farms.
2023 edition · data for 2023 · CC BY 4.0
No reading
Cereal yield (kg per hectare)
Higher is better
FAO publishes no 2023 figure for Tonga, so the standing rests on the other keys.
Across the 179 countries in this edition, values run from 23 (Cabo Verde) to 29,147 (Oman); the world median is 3,072.
- World median
- 3,072
Each grey tick is one of 179 countries in the 2023 edition.
Key 2 of 4
Organic Agricultural Area
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Why it is a key: Farmland managed without synthetic fertiliser or pesticide — how a country farms, set beside how much it grows.
2024 edition · data for 2024 · CC BY 4.0
0.92
Organic share of agricultural land (%)
Higher is better
Tonga: 0.92. Across the 156 countries in this edition, values run from 0 (Afghanistan) to 86.38 (Samoa); the world median is 0.725.
- World median
- 0.725
- Best in Polynesia
- 86.38 Samoa
Each grey tick is one of 156 countries in the 2024 edition.
Key 3 of 4
Dietary Energy Supply
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Why it is a key: Whether the food a country produces and imports covers what its population needs to eat, measured before anyone has eaten it.
2024 edition · data for 2024 · CC BY 4.0
No reading
Dietary energy supply (kcal per person per day)
Higher is better
FAO publishes no 2024 figure for Tonga, so the standing rests on the other keys.
Across the 155 countries in this edition, values run from 1,757 (Somalia) to 3,962 (United States); the world median is 2,982.
- World median
- 2,982
- Best in Polynesia
- 3,216 Samoa
Each grey tick is one of 155 countries in the 2024 edition.
Key 4 of 4
Agriculture Orientation Index
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Why it is a key: How much public spending agriculture attracts set against the share of the economy it produces — whether a state invests in its farms or lives off them.
2024 edition · data for 2024 · CC BY 4.0
0.17
Agriculture orientation index (1.0 = spending matches sector size)
Higher is better
Tonga: 0.17. Across the 132 countries in this edition, values run from 0.03 (Ghana) to 5.38 (Singapore); the world median is 0.305.
- World median
- 0.305
- Best in Polynesia
- 0.24 Samoa
Each grey tick is one of 132 countries in the 2024 edition.
02Over time
Which way Tonga is moving
Each key’s published value, edition by edition, beside the world median. The Country Index 2026 is the first edition of the standing, so the standing itself has no history to chart yet.
Organic Agricultural Area
Organic share of agricultural land (%) · higher is better
TongaWorld median
Tonga rose from 0.74 in 2011 to 0.92 in 2024; the world median went from 0.46 to 0.725.
Every year’s figures
Year Tonga World median 2024 0.92 0.725 2023 0.92 0.780 2022 0.92 0.740 2021 3.21 0.710 2020 3.22 0.665 2019 3.22 0.550 2018 1.96 0.490 2017 4.61 0.630 2016 4.33 0.545 2015 7.85 0.540 2014 6.10 0.470 2013 1.17 0.440 2012 1.18 0.480 2011 0.74 0.460 2010 — 0.330 2009 — 0.335 2008 — 0.290 2007 — 0.370 2006 — 0.305 2005 — 0.345 Agriculture Orientation Index
Agriculture orientation index (1.0 = spending matches sector size) · higher is better
TongaWorld median
Tonga fell from 0.35 in 2010 to 0.17 in 2024; the world median went from 0.32 to 0.305.
Every year’s figures
Year Tonga World median 2024 0.17 0.305 2023 0.18 0.305 2022 0.23 0.290 2021 0.21 0.260 2020 0.20 0.255 2019 0.20 0.265 2018 0.27 0.270 2017 0.25 0.260 2016 0.28 0.285 2015 0.19 0.305 2014 0.20 0.300 2013 0.19 0.285 2012 0.17 0.330 2011 0.15 0.290 2010 0.35 0.320 2009 — 0.370 2008 — 0.390 2007 — 0.410 2006 — 0.355 2005 — 0.325 2004 — 0.320 2003 — 0.320 2002 — 0.340 2001 — 0.360
03In context
Tonga beside its neighbours
A position reads best beside the countries around it. Every position below is a place among all 175 countries on food & agriculture, never a place within the region.
1st175thNot placed · 49 countries with too few key statisticsNo data
Tonga and Polynesia
Tonga has no land border, so the table compares it with its sub-region. The standing is each country’s place among all 175 placed on the topic; the other columns are the publishers’ own values, read at the edition the standing used.
| Country | Standing | Cereal YieldCereal yield (kg per hectare) | Organic Agricultural AreaOrganic share of agricultural land (%) | Dietary Energy SupplyDietary energy supply (kcal per person per day) | Agriculture Orientation IndexAgriculture orientation index (1.0 = spending matches sector size) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Samoa | 40th | — | 86.38 | 3,216 | 0.24 |
| Tonga | 112th | — | 0.92 | — | 0.17 |
 American Samoa | not placed | — | — | — | — |
 Cook Islands | not placed | — | — | — | — |
 French Polynesia | not placed | — | — | — | — |
 Niue | not placed | — | — | — | — |
 Tuvalu | not placed | — | — | — | — |
“—” means the publisher gives no reading for that country in that edition. A country needs readings on enough keys to be placed.
Across Polynesia
Every country in the sub-region, by its place among all 175.
Placed either side on food & agriculture
The countries immediately above and below Tonga in the topic’s list.
04Context, no vote
Where Tonga is ahead of the world, and behind
10 more statistics filed under food & agriculture, published in full and deliberately given no vote in the standing. Select a row for the publisher, the rank and the links.
Behind the world median3
Statistics on which Tonga does worse than the middle country measured.
Livestock Production IndexFAO · 2022 · world median 107.06100.86107.06▼ Worsened since 2012
Tonga: 100.86 · world median 107.06 · Livestock production index (2014–2016 = 100). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2022 edition, data for 2022.
Published values in that edition run from 35.52 to 190.08; higher is better.
Position 133rd of 194 — derived here by ordering the published values, 1st = best. The publisher ranks no country on this.
Crop Production IndexFAO · 2022 · world median 106.2397.18106.23▼ Worsened since 2012
Tonga: 97.18 · world median 106.23 · Crop production index (2014–2016 = 100). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2022 edition, data for 2022.
Published values in that edition run from 53.79 to 189.93; higher is better.
Position 144th of 195 — derived here by ordering the published values, 1st = best. The publisher ranks no country on this.
Food Production IndexFAO · 2022 · world median 106.0897.78106.08▼ Worsened since 2012
Tonga: 97.78 · world median 106.08 · Food production index (2014–2016 = 100). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2022 edition, data for 2022.
Published values in that edition run from 71.08 to 177.49; higher is better.
Position 155th of 195 — derived here by ordering the published values, 1st = best. The publisher ranks no country on this.
No better end7
These describe the shape of a country — more is not better or worse, only different — so they are never ahead or behind.
Livestock DensityFAO · 2023 · world median 0.5351.050.535No real change since 2013
Tonga: 1.05 · world median 0.535 · Livestock units per hectare of agricultural land. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2023 edition, data for 2023.
Published values in that edition run from 0.02 to 43.97.
Position 47th of 188 — derived here by ordering the published values, counted from the highest value. The publisher ranks no country on this.
Arable Land per PersonFAO · 2023 · world median 0.1090.1910.109Moved since 2013
Tonga: 0.191 · world median 0.109 · Arable land (hectares per person). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2023 edition, data for 2023.
Published values in that edition run from 0 to 1.459.
Position 62nd of 206 — derived here by ordering the published values, counted from the highest value. The publisher ranks no country on this.
Agricultural LandFAO · 2023 · world median 37.9648.6137.96Moved since 2013
Tonga: 48.61 · world median 37.96 · Agricultural land (% of land area). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2023 edition, data for 2023.
Published values in that edition run from 0.445 to 86.48.
Position 65th of 209 — derived here by ordering the published values, counted from the highest value. The publisher ranks no country on this.
Employment in AgricultureILO · 2025 · world median 14.3823.6114.38Moved since 2015
Tonga: 23.61 · world median 14.38 · Employment in agriculture (% of total employment). International Labour Organization (ILO), 2025 edition, data for 2025.
Published values in that edition run from 0.095 to 85.34.
Position 73rd of 182 — derived here by ordering the published values, counted from the highest value. The publisher ranks no country on this.
Pesticide Use per HectareFAO · 2024 · world median 1.730.651.73No real change since 2014
Tonga: 0.65 · world median 1.73 · Pesticide use (kg per hectare of cropland). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2024 edition, data for 2024.
Published values in that edition run from 0 to 37.72.
Position 136th of 178 — derived here by ordering the published values, counted from the highest value. The publisher ranks no country on this.
Agricultural EmissionsFAO · 2023 · world median 8,63583.858,635No real change since 2013
Tonga: 83.85 · world median 8,635 · Farm-gate emissions (kt CO₂eq). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2023 edition, data for 2023.
Published values in that edition run from 0 to 1,044,508.
Position 171st of 193 — derived here by ordering the published values, counted from the highest value. The publisher ranks no country on this.
Fertilizer Consumption per HectareFAO · 2023 · world median 87.364.5587.36Moved since 2013
Tonga: 4.55 · world median 87.36 · Fertilizer consumption (kg per hectare of arable land). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2023 edition, data for 2023.
Published values in that edition run from 0 to 2,926.
Position 172nd of 188 — derived here by ordering the published values, counted from the highest value. The publisher ranks no country on this.
No current reading for Tonga
Agricultural Irrigated Land, Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Value Added (% of GDP) (last 2024), Cereal Import Dependency Ratio (last 2021), Cereal Yield, Dietary Energy Supply, Global Report on Food Crises, Land Under Cereal Production, Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity (last 2022), Prevalence of Undernourishment and Water Withdrawal by Sector. Listed rather than hidden, so the page can be checked against it.
05Country Index 2026
Food & Agriculture among Tonga’s 14 topics
Food & Agriculture is Tonga’s 11th best-placed topic of 14. Strongest first; each marker sits at the position divided by that topic’s field, so fields of different sizes compare fairly.
- Poverty & Inequality14th of 1592/2 keys
- Education & Knowledge21st of 1712/4 keys
- Democracy & Civil Liberties43rd of 1982/3 keys
- Health & Wellbeing67th of 2003/4 keys
- Environment & Sustainabilityjoint 93rd of 1812/3 keys
- Gender & Equality99th of 1832/4 keys
- Work & Labourjoint 103rd of 1824/4 keys
- Development & Human Capital115th of 1963/3 keys
- Risk & Resilience118th of 1923/3 keys
- Governance & Institutions124th of 1942/4 keys
- Food & Agriculture112th of 1752/4 keys
- Energy140th of 1932/3 keys
- Digital & Technology158th of 1983/3 keys
- Economy & Innovation146th of 1762/4 keys
No standing on Peace & Security, Mobility & Trade: too few of those topics’ key statistics are published for this country.
06The top of the list
Who leads on food & agriculture
The three countries placed highest of 175, and the leaders Tonga can most readily be measured against.
1
AustriaWestern Europe
1st of 175 · 4 of 4 keys
Photo: chensiyuan · CC BY-SA 4.0, greyscale
2
IrelandNorthern Europe
2nd of 175 · 4 of 4 keys
Photo: derivative work: Jjtkk · CC BY-SA 2.0, greyscale
3
CzechiaEastern Europe
3rd of 175 · 4 of 4 keys
Photo: john mcsporran from Trossachs, Scotland · CC BY 2.0, greyscale
Placed highest nearby
Highest in Oceania
Australia39th4/4 keysHighest in Polynesia
Samoa40th3/4 keysThis page
Tonga112th2/4 keys
Positions out of 175 placed on the topic. A country needs readings on enough keys to be placed, and the top of the list is often held on fewer of them.
07Questions
Tonga on food & agriculture: questions answered
Every answer is built from the numbers on this page, so none can say something the page does not.
How does Tonga rank on food & agriculture?
Tonga is placed 112th of 175 countries on Food & Agriculture in the Country Index 2026, from 2 of its 4 key statistics (Organic Agricultural Area and Agriculture Orientation Index). The position is this site’s ordering of published statistics, not a rank any publisher printed.
What is the latest Organic Agricultural Area figure for Tonga?
0.92 in 2024 (organic share of agricultural land (%)), according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The world median in the same edition was 0.725.
What is the latest Agriculture Orientation Index figure for Tonga?
0.17 in 2024 (agriculture orientation index (1.0 = spending matches sector size)), according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The world median in the same edition was 0.305.
How have Tonga’s food & agriculture figures changed?
Organic Agricultural Area rose from 0.74 in 2011 to 0.92 in 2024; Agriculture Orientation Index fell from 0.35 in 2010 to 0.17 in 2024.
Which food & agriculture statistics are missing for Tonga?
No current reading is published for Tonga on Agricultural Irrigated Land, Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Value Added (% of GDP), Cereal Import Dependency Ratio, Cereal Yield, Dietary Energy Supply, Global Report on Food Crises, Land Under Cereal Production, Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, Prevalence of Undernourishment and Water Withdrawal by Sector. They are listed rather than hidden, so the evidence on the page can be checked against it.
08Keep reading
Explore further
Tonga, topic by topic
- Governance & Institutions124th of 194
- Economy & Innovation146th of 176
- Work & Labour=103rd of 182
- Education & Knowledge21st of 171
- Health & Wellbeing67th of 200
- Development & Human Capital115th of 196
- Environment & Sustainability=93rd of 181
- Gender & Equality99th of 183
- Democracy & Civil Liberties43rd of 198
- Risk & Resilience118th of 192
- Poverty & Inequality14th of 159
- Energy140th of 193
- Digital & Technology158th of 198
- The full Tonga profile
Nearby, on food & agriculture
The key statistics, for every country
09Method
Method, sources and how to cite
What this topic does not measure
This subject is about production and land use, not about whether people are fed. Hunger, undernourishment and what a population actually eats are measured under Health & Wellbeing, and the two regularly disagree — a country can grow a great deal and still leave many people short, and one that grows little can be well fed by trade. The wider environmental cost of farming — emissions, water withdrawal, forest cover — is filed under Environment & Sustainability.
How the Food & Agriculture standing is decided, step by step
A standing is a place in a list, not a mark out of anything. This one is part of the Country Index 2026, and it is worked out like this.
- A few key indicators decide it; the rest are context. 4 indicators on this topic are keys and 18 are charted alongside them without a vote. That split is the point: if every statistic voted, importing five more of one kind would quietly change what the topic is about.
- Each key is read at one edition. ⚠ The keys behind this standing do not all describe the same year — they run from 2023 to 2024, because publishers release on their own schedules. Read the standing as “how this country places now”, not as a snapshot of one year.
- Every country’s published value is turned into a place within that one key’s own field, and then expressed as a share of that field — how far down this key’s list the country sits, rather than how many countries are above it. Keys where a higher published number is worse (terrorism, hunger, disaster risk) are turned round first, so the good end is always the same end.
- Dividing by the field first is the whole reason this works. A place carries the size of its list inside it: 22nd of 44 and 108th of 215 are the same showing, and averaging the numbers 22 and 108 says loudly that they are not. Fields on this site run from about 44 countries to about 215, so averaging raw places would reward a country for happening to be measured in small ones. Dividing each place by its own field removes the size and leaves only the showing.
- The shares are averaged, plainly. One key, one vote — no key is weighted above another, because any weighting would be this site’s opinion presented as a measurement. Countries are then put in order by that average, and the average itself is never published. It is our arithmetic with nothing anchoring it, so printing it would invite it to be read as a measurement somebody made. The position it produces, the band, and the keys it was built from are all published instead — every one of them checkable against the tables on this page.
- A country needs 2 of this topic’s 4 keys — half, rounded up, and never fewer than 2. A standing built from one reading, printed beside one built from four, is two different things sharing a column heading. 175 countries clear the bar here.
- A key has to earn its vote every edition. It must measure at least 120 countries (below that it starts measuring who was surveyed rather than the world), it must not have more than 10% of its field tied at either end, and it must not repeat another key in the same topic — Spearman correlation above 0.92 counts as repeating. A topic needs at least 2 surviving keys to place anyone at all; this one has 4.
- A standing is relative, and the grouping is ours. It says where a country places against the others measured alongside it, so it moves when they move. The publishers listed on this page did not agree to be read together, and each measures its subject its own way: the underlying numbers are theirs, the ordering on top is this site’s — the same method as the rest of the Country Index, applied to one subject instead of all of them.
The key statistics and their licences
- Cereal Yield — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), CC BY 4.0
- Organic Agricultural Area — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), CC BY 4.0
- Dietary Energy Supply — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), CC BY 4.0
- Agriculture Orientation Index — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), CC BY 4.0
The other 10 statistics on this page come from 2 publishers, each named beside its numbers, with every edition and licence on the datasets pages.
The standing itself is part of the Country Index 2026, published under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photographs
Tonga’s banner and the countries placed highest, from their profiles: Wikimedia Commons, shown in greyscale, each used under the licence named.
- Tonga (banner) — Haanofonua derivative work: Massimo Telò, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Austria — chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Ireland — derivative work: Jjtkk, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Czechia — john mcsporran from Trossachs, Scotland, CC BY 2.0
Cite this page
Nations Inquiry (2026). Tonga: Food & Agriculture — standing and statistics, Country Index 2026. https://nationsinquiry.com/countries/tonga/food