Against the backdrop of agricultural sector in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries facing frequent and interconnected global shocks, government support to agriculture has increased, exceeding $950 billion in 2025.
OECD’s Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2026 examines how governments are responding to these developments and identifies opportunities to make agricultural support more effective, forward‑looking and better aligned with resilience, productivity and sustainability, an Emirates News Agency (WAM) report said.
Government support to agriculture increased by nearly 15%, or more than $121 billion, between 2023 and 2025. This increase has reversed a long‑term decline relative to production. This comes as agriculture faces more frequent and interconnected global shocks, with increasing economic impact.
Reactive, short‑term measures
Yet, while this calls for predictable and forward‑looking policies, governments often use reactive, short‑term measures in response to successive crises.
Agricultural productivity growth is slowing, while public investment in the systems that support long‑term resilience and productivity is failing to keep pace. Spending on general services such as infrastructure, research and innovation averaged $118 billion annually in 2023‑2025, across the 56 countries covered, but fell from 4.6% to 2.4% of agricultural production since the early 2000s.
Investment in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems now amounts to around 0.5% of sector value, roughly half the level observed in 2000‑2002.
Agricultural support affects consumers as well as farmers. Policies that raise domestic food prices mean consumers also bear part of the cost of agricultural support, outweighing direct support they receive in some countries. Across the countries covered, consumers were implicitly taxed by an estimated $204 billion per year through agricultural support policies in 2023‑2025, equivalent to 4.4% of consumer spending at primary product prices.--TradeArabia News Service
