Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries 2007 Monitoring and Evaluation

Support to farmers in OECD countries accounted for 27% of farm receipts in 2006, a drop of 2 percentage points from 2005. However, for the OECD as a whole, there has been little change in the level of producer support since the late 1990s. In the most recent period, there was progress in the way support is provided to producers, via a noticeable shift away from measures linked to the production of specific commodities. But despite a sizeable reduction, production-linked measures still dominate producer support in most countries. In addition, there has been only limited progress towards policies that target clearly defined objectives and beneficiaries. Better targeting of policies would increase their effectiveness in meeting domestic objectives, enhance efficiency, and improve transparency. This book is a unique source of up-to-date estimates of support to agriculture. Separate chapters describe and evaluate agricultural policies in each OECD country, including such important developments as the introduction of the single-payment scheme in the EU. This edition also includes a special chapter describing the revised method of estimating support to agriculture used for the first time in this report. Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries: Monitoring and Evaluation is published every other year, alternating with Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries: At a Glance.