G/AG/GEN/194  
 
3 March  2022 
(22-1972) Page: 1/2 
Committee on Agriculture  Original: English  
 
 
UPDATE ON OECD ACTIVITIES OF INTEREST TO THE WTO COMMITTEE  
ON AGRICULTURE – WORK RELATED TO COVID -19 
 
"COVID -19 AND AGRICULTURE"  
Submission by the OECD  
The following submission, dated 23 February 2022, is being circulated at the request of 
the Organisation for Economic Co -operation and Development (OECD).  
 
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1  OECD AGRICULTURAL POLICY MONITORING AND EVALUATION 2021  
1.1.  In June 2021, the OECD published its latest Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation  
report, inclu ding a thematic focus on "Addressing the Challenges Facing Food Systems ". Global food 
systems are facing a formidable "triple challenge " of delivering food security and nutrition for a 
growing world population, providing incomes and livelihoods for those i nvolved in farming and other 
segments of the food chain, and doing so in a sustainable manner by reducing pressures on natural 
resources while contributing to reductions in GHG emissions. The report finds that, while significant 
progress has been made in t he past decades across all of these dimensions, on balance agricultural 
policies are not serving the wider needs of food systems and do not address these three dimensions 
effectively.  
1.2.  The onset of the COVID -19 pandemic in early 2020 led to containment meas ures that resulted 
in a profound economic shock. Nonetheless, as noted in the report, governments moved swiftly to 
keep agricultural supply chains functioning, including by designating agriculture and food as an 
essential sector and implementing nearly 800  measures across 54 countries in response to the 
pandemic. Substantial resources were earmarked for COVID -19 sectoral support, including 
USD 75 billion in OECD countries and USD 82 billion in emerging economies, even though actual 
disbursements have so far  been much lower. As a result of these interventions, policies were 
generally successful in maintaining the overall functioning of food supply chains, albeit within an 
overall structure of agricultural support programmes that showed little change.  
1.3.  A signif icant number of COVID -19 responses, close to 20% of the total, were urgent measures, 
adopted in order to contain the pandemic while keeping food and agriculture supply chains working. 
Just under 70% of measures took the form of temporary relief, seeking to  contain the impact of the 
crisis on agriculture and food sector actors, and should be phased out as the crisis recedes. Most of 
the remaining measures (10%) were "no regrets " policies with the potential to improve 
the long-term resilience of the agro -food sector, and which have the potential to be scaled up further. 
At the same time, 11% of measures had the potential to distort markets or be harmful to the 
environment. In particular, several countries imposed export restrictions in order to direct supplies  
to domestic markets.  
1.4.  The full report can be accessed at  https://doi.org/10.1787/2d810e01 -en while a related policy 
brief can be found at:  
https://issuu.com/oecd.publishing/docs/agricultural_policy_monitoring_and_evaluation_2021 . 
1.5.  A separate policy brief looks specifically at the way policy makers have responded to the 
COVID -19 pandemic to keep agro -food markets functioning. It can be found at:  G/AG/GEN/194  
 
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  https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy -responses/keep -calm-and-carry-on-feeding -agriculture -
and-food-policy -responses -to-the-covid-19-crisis-db1bf302/ . 
1.6.  The next edition of the OECD Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation  report will be 
published in June 2022 and will focus on the role of agricultural policies for achieving climate change 
mitigation targets, as set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.  
1.7.  Contact: Martin von Lampe (Email: martin.vonlampe@oecd.org ) 
 
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