This report analyses policy agricultural developments during 2006-08 in seven economies: Brazil, Chile, China, India, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine. This period was marked by a significant increase in world prices for most, but not all, agricultural commodities. Policy responses to rising food prices included tariff reductions, export restrictions, increased minimum prices and price controls, input subsidies, sales of stocks and direct transfers to the most disadvantaged. Other major common policy developments included: expanded government-supported credit facilities and/or debt rescheduling, endeavours to improve the delivery and performance of agricultural policies, extended coverage of insurance programmes and further efforts in land reform. A comprehensive statistical annex containing a wide range of contextual information for these economies is also included in this report. Estimates of support to agriculture in six economies (India is not yet covered) from 1995 to 2007 are provided, in conformance with recent changes to the OECD measurement methodology. This allows a consistent comparison across emerging economies and with OECD countries in terms of changes in the level and composition of support to producers and the sector as a whole.
This publication describes major developments affecting fisheries in OECD countries in 2004, 2005 and 2006, including changes in national and international policies, trade, and fisheries and aquaculture production. This edition contains a special chapter on Foreign Direct Investment in OECD fisheries.
With the development and entry into force of the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement in 1995, the international community made a commitment to strengthen Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs), established to deal with the management of shared high seas resources. This study takes stock of the changes made in RFMOs, highlighting a gradual process of improvement that has translated into significant success stories. While there is no single recipe for this process, ensuring that the fundamental building blocks are in place to help create and maintain the economic and political momentum for change is important. Altering the underlying economic incentives may help to better align the interests of member countries, allowing coalitions for change to develop within the membership. The study and its analysis is built on evidence from a range of case studies of RFMOs, most notably the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CSBT), the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO) and the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC).
The sources of risk in agriculture are numerous and diverse, ranging from events related to climate and weather conditions to animal diseases; from changes in agriculture commodities prices to changes in fertilizer and other input prices; and from financial uncertainties to policy and regulatory risks. Agricultural risks are not independent, but rather are linked both to each other and as part of a system that includes all available instruments, strategies and policies designed to manage risk. A holistic approach is thus necessary.
This book examines the current magnitude and characteristics of risk-related policies in agriculture and what is known about the quantitative size of agricultural risks. It looks at the on-farm, off-farm, and market instruments available to manage risk, and it explains how the holistic approach helps clarify the role of governments.
Improving the environmental performance of agriculture is a high priority for OECD countries. But measuring and evaluating the impact of agri-environmental policies on the environment can be challenging, as it requires linking economic and biophysical models in country-specific contexts.
The OECD has developed the Stylised Agri-environmental Policy Impact Model (SAPIM), which can be adapted and applied by researchers and policy makers to better understand the impact of policies on the agri-environment conditions in their countries.
This report applies the model to representative farms in Finland, Japan, Switzerland and the United States. These countries include a wide range of objectives, policy measures and agri-environmental conditions. The results highlight that when positive or negative environmental externalities are not taken into account by farmers then the production choices by farmers will reflect private costs and benefits. Policies can potentially raise social welfare by taking account of those externalities.
This report notes that, overall, the diversity of conditions across sectors and countries makes it difficult to generalise the impact of agri-environmental policies beyond the situations that are modeled. Nevertheless, some wider policy messages emerge. Drawing on the four case studies examined, this report recommends that; polluting activites that are not regulated should be included in policy design; the existing overall policy environment needs to be taken into account in evaluating agri-environmental policies; and environmental co-benefits and trade-offs need to be recognised.
Green growth policies can stimulate economic growth while preventing environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and unsustainable natural resource use. The results from this publication contribute to the Green Growth Strategy being developed by the OECD as a practical policy package for governments to harness the potential of greener growth.
The United States is one of the most important agricultural producers in the world. It has a very large domestic market and is the world's largest exporter of agricultural products. Indeed, the share of US agricultural production exported is more than double that of any other US industry and the trade surplus in agricultural products acts as an important stimulus to the US economy. Thus, US agricultural policies exert a strong influence on world agricultural markets.
The United States maintains an array of agricultural policies with goals that range from the traditional objectives of stabilising agricultural production and supporting farm income to those that have more recently increased in importance, such as assuring adequate nutrition, securing food safety, encouraging environmental protection and facilitating rural development.
This study analyses and evaluates US agricultural policies, focusing on the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, in the context of developments in agricultural policy that have taken place in the United States since 1985. It looks closely at five US Farm Acts: the Food Security Act of 1985; the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990; the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996; the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (2002 Farm Act); and the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008. This study also discusses several emerging issues and challenges for US agricultural policies, and offers key policy recommendations.
The fish on your plate may have been caught by a high-tech trawler, trapped by a lone fisher, farmed along with tons of others, or even stolen by pirates. It may have been captured in the South Atlantic, landed in Europe, and processed in China. Globalisation, North-South relations, changing attitudes and lifestyles, and the way we manage natural resources all influence fisheries.
This book uses the expertise of the OECD to assess these issues, and describes the challenges facing those who work in the industry. Apart from the fishers themselves and their families, it also draws on the points of view of NGOs, government specialists, scientists and independent experts.
This book includes StatLinks, URLs under graphs and tables linking to Excel® spreadsheets showing the underlying data.
This overview of global markets for fish and fish products finds that they have changed considerably over the past few decades and continue to do so, with ever growing interactions across countries and continents. Change has brought substantial benefits to the world economy and a number of policy challenges for governments. To meet these challenges, without compromising the advantages of increasing market interactions, countries must develop and implement fisheries management frameworks and aquaculture strategies that accommodate globalisation without undermining resource sustainability.
Agriculture is the major user of water in most countries. It also faces the enormous challenge of producing almost 50% more food by 2030 and doubling production by 2050. This will likely need to be achieved with less water, mainly because of growing pressures from urbanisation, industrialisation and climate change. In this context, it will be important in future for farmers to receive the right signals to increase water use efficiency and improve agricultural water management, while preserving aquatic ecosystems. This report calls on policy makers to recognise the complexity and diversity of water resource management in agriculture and the wide range of issues at stake. And it gives them the tools to do so, offering a wealth of information on recent trends and the outlook for water resource use in agriculture, including the impacts of climate change. It examines the policy experiences of OECD countries in managing their water resources for agriculture, with focus on: the extent to which countries subsidise the supply of water to farmers; flood and drought risk policies; and institutional organisation and governance as it relates to water and the agricultural sector. The report offers concrete recommendations on what countries should be doing and why.
Improving the environmental performance of agriculture is a high priority in OECD and many non-OECD countries. This will be of increasing concern in the future given the pressure to feed a growing world population with scarce land and water resources. Policy has an important role to play where markets for many of the environmental outcomes from agriculture are absent or poorly functioning.
This study focuses on the design and implementation of environmental standards and regulations, taxes, payments and tradable permit schemes to address agri-environmental issues. It deals with the choice of policy instruments and the design of specific instruments, with the aim of identifying those that are most cost-effective in very different situations across OECD countries.
Key conclusions from the study are that: there is no unique instrument that promises to achieve all agri-environmental policy goals; the cost effectiveness of payments systems could be improved by using performance-based measures; and policy mixes need to combine policy instruments that complement and not conflict with each other.
This report analyses Philippine agricultural policy. Agriculture provides 30% of total employment in the Philippines and represents 11% of its Gross Domestic Product. The Philippines has had notable recent overall economic success, yet improving agricultural performance remains challenging. Productivity growth lags behind other Southeast Asian countries, and a number of policy distortions hinder progress. With agricultural land resources also under pressure from frequent natural disasters, rising population and urbanisation, the report offers a series of recommendations to improve the sector's performance and its ability to adapt to climate change.
Costa Rica's strong agricultural sector is underpinned by the country's political stability, robust economic growth and high levels of human development. The sector has achieved significant export success, yet raising productivity and staying competitive in world markets will require efforts to address bottlenecks in infrastructure, innovation and access to financial services. Maximising Costa Rica's comparative advantage in higher-value niche products will depend upon more efficient services to agriculture, including better implementation of programmes, improved co-ordination among institutions, and reduced bureaucracy. While overall protection for agriculture is relatively low compared to OECD countries, it is nonetheless highly distorting to production and trade. Managing the transition to scheduled liberalisation presents an opportunity to reform costly policies, and to implement an alternative policy package with new investments in innovation, productivity and diversification, supported by transition assistance where needed. Costa Rican agriculture's vulnerability to extreme weather events is expected to worsen with climate change, and even while the country is among global leaders in environmental protection, sustainable development and climate change mitigation, further adaptation efforts will be necessary.
Over the ten-year Outlook period, agricultural markets are projected to remain weak, with growth in China weakening and biofuel policies having less impact on markets than in the past. Future growth in crop production will be attained mostly by increasing yields, and growth in meat and dairy production from both higher animal stocks and improved yields. Agricultural trade is expected to grow more slowly, but remain less sensitive to weak economic conditions than other sectors. These demand, supply and trade pressures are all evident in Southeast Asia, where this report identifies scope to improve agricultural productivity sustainably. Real prices are expected to remain flat or decline for most commodities.
The OECD Review of Fisheries provides information on developments in policies and activities in the fishing and aquaculture sectors of OECD countries and participating economies, mainly for the period 2015-16. This year's edition includes 35 countries and economies, comprising 28 OECD countries as well as a regional chapter covering developments in the European Union. Also participating in this edition are Argentina, the People's Republic of China, Colombia, Indonesia, Lithuania, Chinese Taipei, and Thailand. Together, the participants in this Review represent nearly half of global fisheries production, and the majority of aquaculture production.
Chapters 1, 2 and 3, known as the "General Survey", provide an overview of the activities in the sector and outline country summary statistics and key developments in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors. The Country Snapshots in Chapter 4 provide additional country level data and details on institutions and policies based on contributions by participating countries and economies.
This report is the 30th in the series of OECD reports that monitor and evaluate agricultural policies across countries, and the fifth report to include both OECD countries and a set of emerging economies. It includes countries from all six continents, including the 35 OECD countries and the six non-OECD EU member states, as well as eleven emerging economies: Brazil, the People's Republic of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Russian Federation, South Africa, Ukraine and Viet Nam. Overall, the 52 countries covered by this report account for about two-thirds of global agricultural value added.
Comprehensive Country Chapters and the Statistical Annex containing detailed background tables with indicators of agricultural support are available in electronic form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/agr_pol-2017-en.
The expansion of agricultural production in China has been remarkable, but at the expense of the sustainable use of its natural resources. To counter this, as well as to face problems due to rising labour costs and a rapidly ageing rural population, agricultural production must concentrate on a smaller number of more productive farms. It is in this light that this report reviews recent policy developments to assess whether they have been conducive to productivity growth and environmental sustainability. It finds that the conditions for structural change and innovation at the farm level in China could be further improved by securing the long-term stability of land rights as well as reducing transaction costs. Greater policy coherence with agri-environmental policy objectives could also be achieved through stricter enforcement of environmental regulations. Finally, the agricultural innovation system could play a greater role by placing the focus on public agricultural R&D in areas such as the environment and resource conservation, and in other areas which do not attract much private sector investment.
Agriculture in Korea is under increasing pressure to meet changing domestic demand, improve its productivity to keep up with the country's competitive manufacturing sector, and become more competitive at the international level. To date, the government has offered extensive support to farm income via price support, direct payments, preferential tax treatment, and reduced input prices. However, a more comprehensive policy approach is required to address the low-income problem in agriculture, and a more comprehensive rural development policy is also required to create employment opportunities for the younger generation.
Korea should explore its potential to export niche agricultural products and processed food that reflect its rich and unique food culture. To unleash the sector's potential, agricultural policy should focus on improving the productivity and sustainability of commercial enterprises and develop the food processing sector. The country's agricultural innovation system should become more integrated and collaborative, benefiting from its strong competitive advantage in Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Recent mergers in the seed industry have led to concerns about market concentration and its potential effects on prices, product choice, and innovation. This study provides new and detailed empirical evidence on the degree of market concentration in seed and GM technology across a broad range of crops and countries, and analyses the causes and potential effects of concentration. It also explains how competition authorities have responded to mergers, and suggests policy options to help safeguard and stimulate competition and innovation in plant breeding by avoiding unnecessary regulatory barriers, by facilitating access to genetic resources and intellectual property, as well as by stimulating public and private R&D. As this study shows, policy makers have several levers besides competition policy to ensure an innovative and competitive seed industry.
This report examines how public stockholding policies related to rice in Asia can influence domestic and international markets. Following a review of the working of rice public stockholding programmes in eight Asian countries (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Thailand), the report examines the impacts of these programmes over the medium term (2018-2030) and analyses how these impacts would change should the selected countries collectively set their public stocks to either a low or high level. Results show that the strongest impacts would occur during the three-year transition period when countries adjust their public stocks to the new levels, but that there would also be structural impacts over the medium term, although at a lower intensity, on procurement, domestic and international prices, availability, private stock levels, and public expenditure. In the event of a global production shock, the model projects that the immediate impact on prices and availability would be less severe under the high public stock scenario, but that recovery would be faster and public expenditure lower when countries hold smaller public stocks.
Ce rapport est le 30ème de la série de rapports qui suivent et évaluent l'évolution des politiques agricoles à travers différents pays, et le cinquième qui inclut à la fois les pays de l'OCDE et un certain nombre d'économies émergentes. Ce rapport couvre les pays de six continents, notamment les 35 pays membres de l'OCDE, les six états de l'Union européenne qui ne sont pas membres de l'OCDE, ainsi que onze économies émergentes : Afrique du Sud, Brésil, République populaire de Chine, Colombie, Costa Rica, Indonésie, Kazakhstan, les Philippines, Fédération de Russie, Ukraine et Viet Nam. Au total, les 52 pays étudiés représentent environ les deux tiers de la valeur ajoutée de l'agriculture mondiale.
La version complète des chapitres par pays ainsi que l'annexe statistique, qui contient des tableaux détaillés des indicateurs de soutien à l'agriculture ne sont disponibles que sous leur forme électronique sur http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/agr_pol-2017-fr.
This study analyses the promotion of collective action for agri-environmental public goods and addresses externalities by reviewing the experience of various OECD member countries. Twenty-five cases from
13 countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) are examined. The study shows that collective action should be given serious consideration as a means of addressing many agricultural and natural resource issues, and in some cases collective action should be actively promoted.
This twentieth edition of the Agricultural Outlook, and the tenth prepared jointly with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), provides market projections to 2023 for major agricultural commodities, biofuels and fish across 41 countries and 12 regions: OECD member countries (European Union as a region), key non-OECD agricultural producers (such as India, China, Brazil, Russian Federation and Argentina) and groups of smaller non-OECD economies in a more aggregated form. This edition includes a special focus on India.
Les sources de risques sont nombreuses et diversifiées ; elles vont des événements climatiques et météorologiques aux maladies animales ; des variations du prix des produits agricoles à celles du prix des engrais et autres intrants ; mais aussi des incertitudes financières aux risques créés par les politiques publiques et les réglementations. Les perturbations récentes observées sur les marchés internationaux des produits agricoles, couplées avec les inquiétudes croissantes en matière de changement climatique, ont conféré un rôle central à la gestion du risque dans le débat sur les politiques agricoles.
Cette publication analyse les caractéristiques et l'ampleur des politiques liées au risque ainsi que ce que nous savons sur le nombre des risques agricoles. Elle examine également les instruments qui existent sur ou en dehors de l'exploitation pour gérer le risque agricole et comment l'approche holistique aide à comprendre le rôle des pouvoirs publics.
Les États-Unis sont l'un des plus importants producteurs de produits agricoles du monde. Ils disposent d'un très vaste marché intérieur et sont le premier exportateur mondial de produits agricoles. En effet, la part de la production qui est exportée est plus de deux fois plus élevée dans l'agriculture que dans n'importe quel autre secteur aux États-Unis et l'excédent commercial agricole est un important stimulant pour l'économie du pays. Par conséquent, les politiques agricoles américaines exercent une forte influence sur les marchés agricoles mondiaux.
Les États-Unis mettent en oeuvre toute une série de politiques agricoles qui visent à atteindre des objectifs habituels, comme la stabilisation de la production et le soutien des revenus agricoles, aussi bien que d'autres dont l'importance s'est récemment accrue, consistant par exemple à assurer une alimentation suffisante, à garantir la sécurité des aliments, à promouvoir la protection de l'environnement et à favoriser le développement rural.
Cette étude analyse et évalue les politiques agricoles des États-Unis, et plus particulièrement la loi de 2008 sur l'alimentation, la conservation des ressources et l'énergie, en la replaçant dans le contexte de l'évolution de la politique agricole enregistrée aux États-Unis depuis 1985. Elle examine de près cinq lois agricoles : la loi sur la sécurité alimentaire de 1985 ; la loi sur l'alimentation, l'agriculture, la conservation des ressources et les échanges de 1990 ; la loi fédérale sur l'amélioration et la réforme de l'agriculture de 1996 ; la loi sur la sécurité agricole et l'investissement rural de 2002 ; et la loi sur l'alimentation, la conservation des ressources et l'énergie de 2008. Cette étude examine aussi plusieurs problèmes et défis qui se font jour auxquels devront répondre les politiques agricoles des Etats-Unis et propose des recommandations importantes à l'intention des pouvoirs publics.
