This report Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2018 is the 31st in the series of OECD reports that monitor and evaluate agricultural policies across countries, and the sixth report to include both OECD countries and a set of Emerging Economies. The present report includes countries from all six continents, including the 35 OECD countries and the six non-OECD EU Member States, as well as ten Emerging Economies: Brazil, People’s Republic of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Russian Federation, South Africa, Ukraine and Viet Nam.

Producer Support Estimate (PSE): The annual monetary value of gross transfers from consumers and taxpayers to agricultural producers, measured at the farm gate level, arising from policy measures that support agriculture, regardless of their nature, objectives or impacts on farm production or income. It includes market price support, budgetary payments and budget revenue foregone, i.e. gross transfers from consumers and taxpayers to agricultural producers arising from policy measures based on: current output, input use, area planted/animal numbers/receipts/incomes (current, non-current), and non-commodity criteria.

In 2015-17, the agricultural policies of the 51 countries covered in this report provided a total of USD 620 billion (EUR 556 billion) a year on average to their agricultural sectors. Around 78% of this, USD 484 billion (EUR 434 billion) a year, was transferred to individual producers, representing around 15% of gross farm receipts. This report considers recent policy developments across these 51 developed, emerging and developing economies.

The key economic and market developments which provide the framework for the implementation of agricultural policies are analysed in the first part of this chapter. The next part presents the main recent changes and new initiatives in agricultural policies 2017-18 in OECD countries and key Emerging Economies. Then the developments in the estimated support (using the OECD Producer Support Estimate methodology) are evaluated in terms of its level, composition and changes over time in the OECD countries and Emerging Economies included in this report. The chapter also focuses on developments in approaches to support and policies related to agricultural innovation for sustainable productivity growth. The chapter ends with an assessment of support and policy reforms and related recommendations.