This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies in 54 countries, including the 38 OECD countries, the five non-OECD EU Member States, and 11 emerging economies. It finds that the continued rise in agricultural support has been slower than sector growth in recent years, but has been driven to record highs mainly by temporary factors.
This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies in 54 countries, including the 38 OECD countries, the five non-OECD EU Member States, and 11 emerging economies.
This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies spanning all six continents, including the 36 OECD countries, the five non-OECD EU Member States, and 13 emerging economies.
The Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations as well as input from collaborating member countries to provide an annual assessment of the prospects for the coming decade of national, regional and global agricultural commodity markets. The publication consists of 11 Chapters; Chapter 1 covers agricultural and food markets; Chapter 2 provides regional outlooks and the remaining chapters are dedicated to individual commodities.
This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies in 54 countries, including the 38 OECD countries, the five non‐OECD EU Member States, and 11 emerging economies. It finds that despite some modest declines in recent years, support to agriculture has remained close to recent historical highs. While changes in support have been limited, agricultural policies have been both reactive and proactive, boosting the sector’s capacity to respond to current challenges while aiming to ensure that food systems are fit for purpose as future conditions evolve. This year’s report focuses on policies fostering sustainable productivity growth in agriculture. Governments are applying a large variety of approaches to improve productivity while preserving natural resources and reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. The report notes, however, that clearly defined targets related to sustainable productivity growth and measurable indicators of progress are important to ensure that policies achieve their stated objectives. The report also notes that making more effective use of producer support to promote innovation and environmental sustainability on the farm, and refocusing overall support towards targeted R&D, can better leverage public spending to deliver public goods and sustainable productivity growth. In line with the 2022 OECD Agriculture Ministerial Declaration, the report identifies a seven-point policy agenda for making agriculture more sustainable, productive and resilient, and for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of agricultural support and markets.
This year’s report should dispel any lingering doubts that the world is moving backwards in its efforts to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. We are now only eight years away from 2030, but the distance to reach many of the SDG 2 targets is growing wider each year. There are indeed efforts to make progress towards SDG 2, yet they are proving insufficient in the face of a more challenging and uncertain context. The intensification of the major drivers behind recent food insecurity and malnutrition trends (i.e. conflict, climate extremes and economic shocks) combined with the high cost of nutritious foods and growing inequalities will continue to challenge food security and nutrition. This will be the case until agrifood systems are transformed, become more resilient and are delivering lower cost nutritious foods and affordable healthy diets for all, sustainably and inclusively.
Food production includes a complex and varied set of agricultural and nonagricultural activities, involving a growing number of sectors and actors that influence the way food is produced, processed, distributed, and consumed. Recently, and especially after the 2021 United Nation Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), it has been proposed that this conglomerate of activities and socioeconomic actors be jointly identified as food systems. National food systems, which exist in each country, are interrelated through trade and other factors with regional food systems and finally with the global food system. The concept of food systems has been adopted as a useful tool for understanding the multiple and complex interrelations between different production, distribution, and trade partners and for adjusting policy analysis and design to this complex world. The discussions and documentation prepared during the UNFSS process brought to public attention not only the utility and complexity of this concept but also some of the shortcomings of current food production practices. The summit also highlighted an urgent need to establish processes for identifying such shortcomings, their relative importance, and possible measures that would lead to the transformation of national food systems and the global food system.
