The OECD Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation report serves as a global reference on government support policies to agriculture across 54 countries. In the context of the 30th anniversary of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, this year’s edition of the report focuses on the interlinkages between trade, agriculture and the environment.
Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2025
Making the Most of the Trade and Environment Nexus in Agriculture
Introduction
Key figures
USD 842 bln
per year, of support was transferred to the agricultural sector between 2022-24
5%
of producer support is used to encourage voluntary environmental action beyond existing regulations
0.54%
of the value of agricultural production is invested in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems
Support to agriculture remains high, but has declined relative to the size of the sector
Total support to the agricultural sector across the 54 countries covered by the report averaged USD 842 billion per year during 2022-24. This is about 20% higher than average levels seen between 2015-2019, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The rapidly growing sector is driving down support as a share of the value of production. But while the potentially most distorting forms of support have declined in relative terms as well, they still represent half of total support.
Government investments in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems have declined as a share of the sector’s production value
On average between 2022 and 2024, USD 112 billion was spent annually for general services to improve the overall performance of the sector, equivalent to 2.4% of the value of agricultural production, down from 4.7% in 2000-02.
Of this, funding for agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS) represented 22% of the total, the second largest type of general services after infrastructure. However, having fallen by almost half since 2000-02 to about 0.5% of the sector’s value of production in 2022-24, estimated levels of spending on AKIS have not been sufficient to accelerate slowing agricultural productivity growth.
Governments are increasingly using trade policies and agreements to pursue environmental goals
Trade growth has outpaced production growth and agriculture is increasingly integrated into global value chains, with many products now crossing borders multiple times before reaching consumers.
Governments are acting to make sure that trade does not come at a cost to water, air, forests and biodiversity. Trade-related measures addressing the sustainability of agriculture and food systems are on the rise, with 60% of the measures identified by the report introduced after 2018. Trade agreements are also evolving: a growing number of them includes environmental provisions, and some are beginning to include provisions specifically related to sustainable food systems.
What can governments do?
Increased and targeted public expenditures for agricultural innovation are required to reverse falling rates of productivity growth and help farmers in developing more environmentally sustainable production methods. Moreover, governments should improve the understanding of the impact of agricultural practices and support policies on the environment in order to guide further policy reforms and investments.
The OECD’s established risk management framework can help guide reforms to countries’ risk management systems. This involves enhancing the capacity and readiness of producers to cover normal business risks, facilitating private market solutions for insurable risks, and responding to catastrophic risks that are beyond the capacity of farmers or private institutions to bear.
Food systems need to meet the triple challenge of ensuring global food security and nutrition for a growing population, providing livelihoods for farmers and others in the food chain, and improving the environmental sustainability of the sector. Governments need to provide farmers with the right incentives for reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint, balanced with open and transparent agro-food trade to improve the capacity of the international trading system.
