Paris:The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has reported that government support for agriculture across its member countries exceeded USD 950 billion in 2025. This increase comes as the agricultural sector faces more frequent and interconnected global shocks, resulting in significant economic impacts.
According to Wam, the Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2026 report highlights the ways in which governments are responding to these developments. The report identifies opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of agricultural support by making it more forward-looking and better aligned with goals of resilience, productivity, and sustainability.
Government support to agriculture saw a nearly 15% increase, amounting to over USD 121 billion between 2023 and 2025. This rise reverses a long-term decline in support relative to production levels. Despite the need for predictable policies, governments have often relied on reactive, short-term measures in response to successive crises.
The report also notes a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth, coupled with insufficient public investment in systems that bolster long-term resilience and productivity. Spending on general services like infrastructure and research averaged USD 118 billion annually from 2023 to 2025 across 56 countries, but this figure represents a decrease from 4.6% to 2.4% of agricultural production since the early 2000s.
Investment in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems has dropped to approximately 0.5% of the sector's value, nearly half the level seen in 2000-2002. The impact of agricultural support extends to consumers, as policies that raise domestic food prices result in consumers effectively bearing part of the support costs. Consumers in the covered countries were indirectly taxed an estimated USD 204 billion per year through these policies from 2023 to 2025, equating to 4.4% of consumer spending at primary product prices.