OECD-FAO 10-Year Agricultural Outlook

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.