Trade policy measures to enhance agricultural sustainability and environmental clauses in trade agreements are on the rise, reflecting governments' efforts to enhance the sector's long-term resilience. But a new OECD report warns that reducing agriculture's environmental footprint while improving food security will require reforming support and redirecting public spending toward research, innovation, and sustainable farming.
OECD Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2025, the global reference on government support policies for agriculture across 54 countries representing 75% of global agriculture value added, shows that total support to agriculture averaged USD 842 billion per year during 2022-24, which is 20% higher than the pre-pandemic period (2015-19).
The subsidies with the strongest potential to distort markets, such as price support for producers, payments based on output, and subsidies for inputs such as fertilizers or fossil fuels, declined in relative terms from 15% of the sector's production value on average between 2000 and 2002, to 9% in 2022 to 2024. However, they still represent about half of the total support provided today.
Governments are increasingly using trade agreements as a tool to promote sustainable agriculture. Between 1997 and 2024, OECD members applied or approved 130 measures, mostly through regional trade agreements, with 60% of them being approved over the past seven years. The report recommends greater harmonisation of sustainability clauses across trade agreements to facilitate their implementation and monitoring, reduce compliance costs for businesses, and help ensure a level playing field for sustainable practices.
"To complement trade agreements that encourage sustainable agriculture, governments can replace market-distorting subsidies with better targeted support for research, innovation and sustainable farming practices," OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said. "This would boost productivity, improve food affordability and security, strengthen the environmental sustainability and resilience of agriculture, and sustain the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on the agriculture sector worldwide."
The value of agro-food exports has grown to USD 1.4 trillion, nearly five times higher than three decades ago and outpacing production growth. However, agricultural products continue to face higher tariffs and quantitative restrictions compared to other sectors, as well as more non-tariff measures that may restrict trade. In 2021-2023, the Americas exported 40% of global agri-food value, while Asia imported 47%, driven by population growth, rising incomes and consumption and expanding urbanisation.
Government investments in agricultural innovation and other services - critical for meeting the sector's productivity and sustainability objectives - remain low. In particular, public investments in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems have fallen to 0.54% of the sector's production value in 2022-24, down from 0.92% in 2000-02, despite their role in strengthening the resilience of global agro-food value chains.
In the report, the OECD recommends a policy agenda to feed a growing global population in an efficient, resilient, and environmentally sustainable way. This includes:
- Reforming, reorienting, and phasing out where possible the most distorting forms of support.
- Reducing income support measures with low transfer efficiencies and prioritising targeted and tailored mechanisms for the direct benefits to farmers.
- Investing more in targeted innovation and sustainable productivity growth.
- Promoting broad approaches to resilience that ensure preparedness and risk management systems that respond to OECD frameworks.
- Promoting environmental protection and mitigation of negative environmental impacts, balanced with open and transparent trade and efforts to address the triple challenge facing agriculture.
The report includes detailed analyses for selected country and the EU, reviewing major policy developments in 2024 and early 2025 with the latest data on agricultural support including the composition of support and its changes over time.
