Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2025

Executive Summary

Governments need coherent agricultural and environmental policies that boost innovation and minimise trade distortions to ensure sustainable global food security

This 2025 Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation report provides the latest figures on government support to agriculture and an in-depth discussion on policies relevant for sustainable agri-food trade. Government support remains higher than in the pre-pandemic period in nominal terms while falling relative to the size of the sector. Estimated spending on innovation has fallen relative to production values while productivity growth is not keeping pace with increased demand for food. At the same time, agro-food trade, which plays an important role in global food security, remains distorted by domestic and border measures. Environmental policies increasingly intersect with trade policies, which can both benefit and complicate global food systems.

Government support to agriculture remains above pre-pandemic levels in nominal terms at USD 842 billion per year while falling relative to the sector size

Total support to the agricultural sector across the 54 countries covered by this report averaged USD 842 billion per year during 2022‑24. This positive support to agriculture includes transfers to individual producers, transfers to producers collectively and transfers to consumers of agricultural commodities. At the same time, some countries’ policies lower domestic prices relative to world markets, generating negative transfers worth USD 179 billion per year in those years.

Producer support makes up approximately three-quarters of all positive support to agriculture (USD 624 billion on average between 2022-24). Over half of this support (USD 334 billion) arises from market price support policies that lift domestic prices above world prices, and the remaining USD 290 billion in the form of budgetary transfers to individual producers.

Market price support, together with some types of budgetary transfers to individual producers (like output payments or certain types of input payments) have been found to have the greatest potential for distorting agricultural production and trade. The potentially most distorting forms of support amounted to 66% of support to producers.

Most support is provided without requirements for recipients beyond existing regulations

During 2022-24, 17% of producer support was provided on the condition of complying with existing regulations concerning environmental performance, animal welfare and other outcomes. While this share has increased from 12% in 2000-02, just 5% of support was conditional on environmental actions that go beyond basic regulatory requirements, unchanged from the early 2000s. Such conditions can increase the public benefits of support, though their effectiveness depends on their design and implementation.

Support to innovation is shrinking as a share of sector value

In addition to supporting farmers directly, governments also invest in general services to improve the overall performance of the sector. On average between 2022 and 2024, USD 112 billion was spent annually for these services, about 13.3% of all positive support for agriculture and equivalent to 2.4% of the value of agricultural production, down from 4.7% in 2000-02. Most spending for general services (47%) is on infrastructure (half of which is related to irrigation). Funding for agricultural knowledge and innovation systems is the next most important type of general service spending, at 22% of the total. However, having fallen to about 0.5% of the sector’s value of production in 2022-24, estimated levels of spending on agricultural knowledge and innovation systems have not been sufficient to accelerate slowing agricultural productivity growth.

More budgetary assistance is provided to consumers compared to the pre-COVID era

Consumers and other first-stage buyers1 of agricultural commodities also benefitted from support policies. Budgetary consumer support averaged USD 105 billion per year in 2022‑24, compared to USD 69 billion per year during 2015-19. Budgetary consumer support rose dramatically following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, but has fallen more recently, to USD 96 billion in 2024, down from USD 101 billion in 2023. Most of the reduction since the COVID-peak occurred in emerging economies.

In addition to budgetary support, a few countries have policies that reduce domestic prices. Such policies, which can reduce food costs for consumers or generate border tax revenues for public budgets, averaged USD 179 billion per year in 2022‑24. However, most market price policies lift domestic prices above world price levels and so implicitly tax consumers. Accounting for all MPS and budgetary support, consumers across the 54 countries covered were implicitly taxed an estimated USD 144 billion per year in 2022-24, or 3.2% of their expenditures at farm-gate prices, which added to consumers’ cost of living.

A growing sector is driving down support as a share of the value of production

Overall, support to agriculture has been higher, in nominal terms, than amounts seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a share of the value of agricultural production, however, positive support has declined from 17% in 2017-19 to 14% in 2022-24, down from 27% at the beginning of the century. This trend is aligned with more open global trade, as potentially most distorting forms of support have become less important in the farming economy. Unfortunately, investments in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems have also declined relative to the size of the sector: at an estimated 0.54% of the sector’s production value, they are well below pre-pandemic levels and barely more than half what they were 25 years ago. This evolution is particularly worrying in emerging economies and urgently needs to be reversed to address slowing rates of productivity growth.

Which countries make the most use of each type of support?

Producer support, measured as a share of Gross Farm Receipts (GFR), serves as a key indicator of the importance of government policies for the agricultural sector. This metric varies markedly across countries, reflecting the diversity of national policy goals and support mechanisms. In Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and Korea, producer support has averaged between 40% and 49% of GFR – indicating a high degree of relative support – whereas in Argentina, Viet Nam, and India, it has ranged from ‑11% to ‑15%, both in 2022-24, with policies effectively taxing farmers.

Over the past two decades, producer support as a share of GFR declined in most countries covered in the report, primarily driven by rising production values (in nominal terms, support levels remain near historical highs). Notably, the People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”) stands apart as the only country to have significantly increased its producer support ratio, rising from 5% of GFR in 2000–02 to 13% in 2022‑24.

India maintains the highest proportion of potentially most trade- and production-distorting support in its agricultural policy mix, with such measures accounting for 95% of all producer support and 40% of GFR. In stark contrast, countries like Australia, Chile, and the United States rely minimally on these types of support policies, where they represent less than 1% of GFR. The reliance on most distorting support has declined most markedly in Japan, Norway, Switzerland, and Iceland, all of which historically made substantial use of such support. However, headline figures can obscure significant internal disparities; within a single country, support may vary widely between commodities – subsidising some while simultaneously taxing others – complicating the interpretation of overall support levels and trends.

Most of the support considered to be potentially less distorting is based on current or historical area, animal numbers, agricultural receipts or incomes. The use of payments based on criteria unrelated to agricultural production remains relatively rare, although this type of support can be used to deliver environmental and social goods to the public. Of the countries in this report, Switzerland and Mexico offer the most support based on non-commodity criteria, as a percentage of GFR.

While overall spending on general services has declined relative to the sector’s size, such investments vary significantly across countries, with some spending significantly above the average. Notably, Japan, Switzerland, and Korea, each delivered general services support exceeding 7% of the production value. Infrastructure remains the predominant component of this support, with Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Türkiye, Chile, and Viet Nam placing the most emphasis on this. Switzerland, Norway, and Korea also stand out for their substantial investment in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems, amounting to up to an estimated 4.2% of the production value.

In most countries, consumers are affected by policies increasing domestic prices to support producers, which implicitly tax them. On the contrary, India and Argentina were the main users of policies that reduced domestic prices, thus benefitting consumers. Finally, some countries also provided budgetary support to consumers, generally focussed on low-income households. The United States, India, Norway, and Indonesia spent the most on this type of consumer support relative to consumption expenditure in 2022-24.

Making the most of the trade and environment nexus in agriculture

In the three decades since the WTO Agreement on Agriculture entered into force, trade of agricultural and food products has expanded and evolved, adapting to economic and geopolitical challenges. 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.

That said, while overall levels of trade protection have been declining, including through a growing number of trade agreements, agro-food products continue to face higher tariffs and quantitative restrictions compared to other sectors, along with a greater incidence of non-tariff measures which may have trade limiting effects. Market price support and other potentially distorting forms of support remain dominant in the agricultural support landscape.

Governments also increasingly recognise the environmental impacts of agriculture and food production and implement policies to address these pressures, including trade-related measures. Some trade agreements also engage with voluntary sustainability initiatives, which are common in agro-food supply chains. Moreover, emerging trade agreements are also beginning to include provisions or dedicated chapters on sustainable food systems.

To address the significant contribution of agriculture and food systems to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, governments have introduced a wide array of climate mitigation policies. Analysis reveals that nearly half of the 120 trade-related mitigation policies identified in this report target agricultural sectors that are export-oriented. Countries also perform carbon footprint calculations at the farm level, product level, or for specific sub-sectors, with 114 public or public-private tools or initiatives identified in the information collected for this report.

Better policies for agricultural trade, the environment, and people

Integrating environmental objectives into trade policies in agriculture and food presents opportunities and challenges. To make better policies at the nexus of trade and environment, it is important to keep in mind that:

• There is a potential tension between designing context-specific policies and creating unnecessary trade barriers arising from a multiplication of approaches. The number and variety of trade-related initiatives for environmental sustainability and GHG mitigation identified illustrates the complexity of the links between trade and the environment and of the sustainability governance ecosystem.

• Small producers and developing countries can be particularly impacted by the large number of measures and their lack of harmonisation, as they may struggle to deal with rising compliance costs.

• Increased regulatory collaboration resulting in mutual recognition or convergence of measures has strong potential to reduce the trade costs related to non-tariff measures and trigger better outcomes in terms of both trade and environmental objectives.

To feed a growing world population in an efficient, resilient and environmentally sustainable way, governments should:

• reform and reorient, including phasing out where possible, the most distorting forms of support, especially MPS and support based on the unconstrained use of variable inputs. Positive directions for reform include towards policies with demonstrated benefits for sustainability, while ensuring the capacity of the international trading system to foster global food security.

• reduce income support measures with low transfer efficiencies and prioritise targeted and tailored mechanisms that deliver direct benefits to farmers.

• invest more in targeted innovation and sustainable productivity growth and improved understanding of the impact of agricultural practices and support policies on the environment.

• promote broad approaches to resilience that ensure preparedness along with risk management systems that respond to OECD’s established risk management framework.

• promote environmental protection and the mitigation of negative environmental impacts, balanced with open and transparent agro-food trade and efforts to address the triple challenge facing agriculture and food systems.

Note

← 1.  Industry consumers who transform agricultural commodities into processed products.