Agricultural policies in OECD countries: monitoring and evaluation 2002
2002
Agricultural trade policy is at the centre of debate. The WTO is now re-negotiating the Agreement of Agriculture (AoA), while the European Union is working at the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) which should be implemented by 2006. The main objective of the agricultural trade reform is to reduce the level of support to producers and the over-production of some commodities while improving infrastructure and services.This paper attempts to evaluate agricultural trade policies in OECD countries and monitor what and to which extent improvements in trade liberalisation have been achieved. Although the level of support and protection to agriculture has decreased since the mid-80s (support to agricultural producers accounted for 31% of total farm receipts in the OECD area in 2001, compared with 32% in 2000 and 38% in 1986-88), market price support and output payments are still dominant. The Doha Development Agenda can be considered as the most significant agricultural trade policy development in favour of developing countries. This paper points out that there is a wide range of support levels across OECD countries and different commodities.In order to have an agricultural trade reform able to benefit both developing and developed countries, the following challenges have to be addressed:further support reductionpromotion of well functioning marketsimplementation of better-targeted measures that are less production and trade distortingeffective achievement of both domestic and international goals
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