Ryan Olson
July 9, 2019
On July 6, 2019, the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) released a 10-year agriculture outlook. The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook
provides a consensus assessment of the 10-year prospects for agricultural and
fish commodity markets at national, regional and global levels. The report
noted that global demand for agricultural products is projected to grow by 15
percent over the coming decade, while agricultural productivity growth is
expected to increase slightly faster, causing inflation-adjusted prices of the
major agricultural commodities to remain at or below their current levels.
Globally OECD and FAO project that the use
of grains for food will grow by about 150 million tons over the outlook period,
a 13 percent increase, with rice and wheat accounting for the bulk of the
expansion. The most significant factor behind the projected increase is population
growth, which is expected to rise fastest in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
New uncertainties are reported as emerging
risks facing agriculture. These include disruptions from trade tensions, the
spread of crop and animal diseases, growing resistance to antimicrobial
substances, regulatory responses to new plant-breeding techniques, and
increasingly extreme climatic events.
More information on the report is available here.