Foreword

This report Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2016 is the 29th in the series of OECD reports that monitor and evaluate agricultural policies across countries, and the fourth report to include both OECD countries and a set of emerging economies. The present report includes countries from six continents, including the 34 OECD countries and the seven non-OECD EU member states, as well as nine emerging economies: Brazil, China, Colombia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine and Viet Nam.

The OECD uses a comprehensive system for measuring and classifying support to agriculture – the Producer and Consumer Support Estimates (PSEs and CSEs) and related indicators. They provide insight into the increasingly complex nature of agricultural policy and serve as a basis for OECD’s agricultural policy monitoring and evaluation.

The “Executive Summary” synthesises the key findings of the report. Chapter 1 provides an overview of developments in agricultural policies and analyses the development of the level and structure of support to agriculture across countries included in the report. Chapter 2 consists of short Country Snapshots which briefly summarise the developments in agricultural policies and support to farms in each individual country covered by this report (the European Union which has a Common Agricultural Policy is presented as a single Country Snapshot). Comprehensive Country Chapters and the Statistical Annex containing detailed background tables with indicators of agricultural support are available in electronic form (https://doi.org/10.1787/agr_pol-2016-en).

The Executive Summary and Chapter 1 are published under the responsibility of OECD Committee for Agriculture. The remainder of the report is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD.