OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2008-2017 - Highlights

Jul 2008

The report is published annually, as part of a continuing effort to promote informed discussion of emerging market and policy issues. This edition of the Agricultural Outlook offers an assessment of agricultural markets covering cereals, oilseeds, sugar, meats, milk and dairy products over the period 2008 to 2017. For the first time, it also includes an analysis of and projections for global biofuel markets for bioethanol and biodiesel, facilitating the discussion of interactions between these markets and those for the main agricultural feedstocks used in their production. The market assessments for all the commodities are based on a set of projections that are conditional on specific assumptions regarding macroeconomic factors, agricultural and trade policies and production technologies; they also assume average weather conditions and longer-term productivity trends. Using the underlying assumptions, the Agricultural Outlook presents a plausible scenario for the evolution of agricultural markets over the next decade and provides a benchmark for the analysis of agricultural market outcomes that would result from alternative economic or policy assumptions.
This year’s Outlook is set against a backdrop of exceptional increases in prices for many agricultural commodities, and this has posed a considerable challenge in preparing the projections and assessing the “durability” of the various influences shaping these prices. That is, which of the factors that are driving up prices are temporary and which will prove to be more permanent influences? How will they individually and collectively affect price levels, price trends and price volatility in the future? How will markets react to currently high prices and a more uncertain price outlook? What are the appropriate policy responses? This report comes at a very timely moment and provides important information, with a view to enlightening the discussion on food-price increases, their causes and their likely consequences for agricultural markets as well as for the policy formulation process.
The projections and assessments provided in this report are the result of close co-operation between the OECD and the FAO Secretariats and national experts in member and some non-member countries, and thus reflect the combined knowledge and expertise of this wide group of participants. A jointly developed modelling system, based on the OECD’s Aglink and FAO’s Cosimo models, facilitated the assurance of consistency in the projections.

By: OECD - FAO

 
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