The FARM Observatory
The Observatory analyzes and compares public support for agriculture and food around the world.
Dans son Observatoire, la Fondation FARM propose des analyses globales et des focus sur les soutiens publics à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation
Trois indicateurs clés sont analysés : les dépenses publiques de soutien à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation, THE market price support et le soutien total à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation.
THE premier volet de ces analyses concerne les éléments clés à retenir sur les dépenses publiques dans le monde et plus spécifiquement en Afrique subsaharienne. Le deuxième volet est consacré à l’étude des soutiens des prix du marché, et enfin le dernier volet dédié à l’analyse du soutien total.
Analyses des indicateurs de soutiens en 2024
Découvrez les analyses récentes sur les 3 principaux indicateurs de l’Observatoire
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Les Dépenses publiques à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation (DPAA)
After going online in 2022, the FARM Foundation's Global Observatory of Public Support for Agriculture and Food is undergoing new developments, with the release of new data! After the first analyses published, FARM offers an in-depth and renewed look at state interventions in the field of agricultural and food support. How much and in what forms do states spend to support their agricultural and food sectors, but also what support gaps can be observed between countries?
An enhanced knowledge platform on public support for agriculture
The Observatory offers new analyses based on updated data from recognized sources (OECD, IDB, MAFAP-FAO) and is enriched by the addition new countries [1] thanks to data from the MAFAP program. It allows for a more detailed analysis of trends and gaps in support between countries, providing decision-makers and stakeholders in the agricultural sector with essential understanding to design more effective and fair support policies.
The Observatory now covers 45 high-income countries, 39 middle-income countries, and 9 low-income countries, together accounting for more than 90% of the value of global agricultural production. Data spans from 1986 to 2022, depending on the country.
The Observatory's analyses continue to be structured around three key indicators: Public expenditure on support for agriculture and food, THE Market price support (measures creating a gap between the domestic price and that of international markets), and the Full support for agriculture and food (link to the methodological note). This first part of the FARM Observatory's analysis focuses on public spending to support agriculture.
[1] The new countries are: Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Seychelles and Bangladesh
More than 542 billion $ of global public spending on agriculture and food
The amount of global public spending directed towards supporting agriculture and food, calculated on the average of the last three known years, amounts to to more than 542 billion US dollars (USD). Nearly 90 % of this amount is concentrated in four major regions: in the lead East Asia (130 billion), North America (125 billion), South Asia (119 billion), and Western and Central Europe (106 billion) (graph 1).
Chart 1
Chart 2 presents the details of these expenses calculated on the average of the last three years by country and expressed in millions of USD within 11 regional groupings. En Asie de l’Est, la Chine is the country that spends the most to support its agriculture with more than , representing a major share of public support spending in this region. In North America, the United States dominate with USD 119 billion, followed by Canada with 5.5 billion USD. For l’Asie du Sud, l’Inde is the largest contributor with USD 114 billion. The bloc formed by the European Union occupies an important place with 92.5 billion USD, followed by United Kingdom (6 billion USD).
As the graph shows, Brazil, Mexico, Ethiopia, Turkey, Russia, Australia and Indonesia are the countries that spend the most to support the agricultural and food sectors in their respective sub-regions.
Chart 2
Les écarts dans les montants des dépenses publiques de soutien à l’agriculture entre les principales régions (Asie de l’Est, Amérique du Nord, Asie du Sud, Europe de l’Ouest et du Centre) et le reste du monde sont considérables. Ces différences révèlent des écarts profonds en termes de capacités budgétaires et de priorités stratégiques entre les pays. Les régions les plus riches et les plus industrialisées allouent des sommes beaucoup plus importantes pour soutenir leur secteur agricole, tandis que les régions à revenu plus faible, comme l’Afrique subsaharienne, disposent de moyens limités pour financer ce type de soutien alors que le secteur agricole est un secteur clé de leurs économies et que l’insécurité alimentaire demeure un problème public sérieux.
Over the past two years (see the analyses of the FARM Foundation), les dépenses publiques mondiales de soutien à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation n’ont que peu évolué. The global panorama remains dominated by rich, industrialized countries, which, although less dependent on agriculture, invest more in this sector.
These disparities make comparisons between countries and regions difficult if we consider only the gross amounts of public spending. To facilitate comparisons, we will relate these amounts to the value of each country's agricultural production. This makes it possible to measure the intensity of support, or in other words, the financial effort made by a state, regardless of its level of wealth, to support its agriculture.
South Asia, North America and Europe lead the way with financial efforts well above the global average
When compared to the value of agricultural production, the analysis of public expenditure also shows significant differences in the intensity of support between countries and regions. At the global level, the financial efforts made by governments to support agriculture represent on average 14% of the value of global agricultural production. Regions such as North America, South Asia, and Western and Central Europe stand out for their strong financial commitment to agriculture. (graph 3). Indeed, l’Asie du Sud affiche l’un des taux les plus élevés des dépenses publiques agricoles représentant 25 % de la valeur de sa production primaire. Juste derrière l’Asie du Sud, l’Amérique du Nord consacre 24 % de la valeur de sa production agricole pour financer son secteur agricole. Avec un soutien de 20 %, l’Europe se distingue également par son engagement financier dans l’agriculture. Cependant, il convient de noter que la réforme de la Politique agricole commune (PAC) de 2003, mise en œuvre dans les années suivantes, a entraîné une réduction des dépenses publiques agricoles. Cette diminution s’explique notamment par le découplage des aides, auparavant liées à la production agricole. Ainsi, les dépenses publiques agricoles sont passées de 27 % de la valeur de la production agricole en 2006 à seulement 17 % en 2022.
Conversely, regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa (8 %) or South America (2 %), despite a significant dependence on agriculture for economic growth and food security, show lower support, due to budgetary constraints and/or strategies oriented towards other support mechanisms, notably through the market.
Chart 3
Nordic countries, champions in terms of intensity of public spending on support for agriculture
THE graph 4 présente une vue détaillée des efforts consentis par chaque pays pour soutenir leur agriculture, exprimés en pourcentage de la production agricole. La Norvège, la Suisse et l’Islande se démarquent avec des niveaux de soutien élevés, atteignant respectivement 55 %, 48 % et 40 % de la production agricole. Parmi les grandes économies agricoles, les États-Unis et l’Inde affichent également un soutien significatif, chacune à 26 %. Certains pays d’Afrique subsaharienne montrent également un engagement public notable. En Éthiopie, en Tanzanie et au Sénégal, les pouvoirs publics consacrent respectivement 23 %, 22 % et 20 % de la valeur de leur production agricole au soutien du secteur, ce qui témoigne d’un effort financier significatif pour ces pays par rapport aux autres pays de la région. En revanche, la Chine, qui représente près de 20 % des 542 milliards USD de dépenses publiques mondiales consacrées à l’agriculture, affiche un soutien relatif nettement inférieur, représentant seulement 6 % de la valeur de sa production agricole, soit une intensité deux fois inférieure à la moyenne mondiale.
Chart 4: Detailed overview by country: Public expenditure on support for agriculture and food in each country, in % of the value of agricultural production
Different approaches or strategies for spending in agriculture
3/5 of global public expenditure on support for agriculture and food is budgetary transfers encouraging production or intended for producers
Public support expenditure is divided into three main categories: budgetary transfers to production, budgetary transfers to consumption and collective services (infrastructure, training, research and extension, etc.) for agricultural development. (chart 5)Each region has its own priorities and adopts distinct strategies. Public expenditure analysis allows us to account for these options and objectives: directly supporting production, competitiveness and producers' income; making agricultural products more affordable for consumers; or investing in the development of rural infrastructure and services dedicated to agricultural development. The distribution of expenditure therefore reflects different priorities that respond to the specific needs of the countries but also to the legacy of public agricultural policies, as indicated by the debates relating to the reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy within the EU.
For example, the United States devotes more than half (55 %) of its public agricultural expenditures to consumer support. The objective is to guarantee more affordable agri-food products for consumers, notably through large food subsidy programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), better known as Food Stamps, or the National School Lunch Program. These policies indirectly contribute to supporting agricultural production. Transfers to production are also significant, accounting for 35 % of expenditures devoted to the sectors, while collective services for agricultural development are relatively low (10 %). Across the border, in Canada, only 2 % of agricultural expenditures are devoted to consumption; the rest is directed overwhelmingly towards production (65 %) and collective services (33 %).
In South Asia, the approach can also vary from one country to another. India devotes 46 billion and 39 billion of its agricultural expenditures to encouraging consumption and production, respectively. Bangladesh, for its part, prioritizes support for collective services (62 billion of expenditures), while fiscal transfers to production represent 31 billion.
In Western and Central Europe, priority is generally given to transfers to production, which represent 85 % of agricultural expenditure, showing direct support to agricultural producers through aid from the Common Agricultural Policy for European Union countries. Collective services for agricultural development are limited to just under 15 %, while there are practically no transfers oriented towards consumer support.
En Afrique subsaharienne, l’essentiel des dépenses publiques (près de 90 %) est dirigé vers les services collectifs pour le développement agricole. Cela montre une approche axée sur l’infrastructure et le développement général du secteur plutôt que sur des subventions directes à la production ou à la consommation. Ces dépenses sont certes nécessaires mais constituent un soutien indirect à la production composé majoritairement de dépenses de service rural (santé, éducation, pistes, etc.) comme nous l’avons montré dans l’analyse publiée en 2022 (retrouvez l’analyse de 2022 ici).
Chart 5:
Perspectives on Sub-Saharan Africa
As in other regions, public expenditures in support of agriculture and food have changed very little in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, the detailed data available for this region are relatively sparse and concern mainly West and East Africa. Thanks to the efforts of FAO's MAFAP Programme, the number of countries covered has increased to 19 with the addition of Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Seychelles.
The bulk of public expenditure on public support for agriculture and food in sub-Saharan Africa remains overwhelmingly oriented towards the provision of collective services for the development of the agricultural sector and rural areas. Collective services represent 86 % of total agricultural budgetary expenditure, but two-thirds (56 %) of this expenditure does not directly target the agricultural sector. This includes, for example, rural expenditure on health, education, infrastructure, etc. However, this rural expenditure is essential and contributes indirectly to the development of the agricultural sector, as the majority of rural populations work in this sector. (chart 6).
Transfers targeting production are low (8 %) and the trade policies implemented reduce or even cancel out the effects of support to producers. These trade policies are often oriented towards maintaining affordable food for consumers (see previous analyses on urban bias). These trade policies favor imports of food products whose prices are more competitive than those of local products. In some countries such as Rwanda or Mali, budgetary transfers granted to producers do not compensate for the negative effects of trade policies (the third part of the Observatory's analyses on Total Support will return to these cases in detail).
Chart 6
Significant aid dependence in times of budget crises among donors
Furthermore, as indicated by the graph 7, it is important to note a certain dependence of agricultural budgets on international aid. Between 10 and 40 % of agricultural expenditures come from the support of donors and technical and financial partners. Such dependence can harm the efficiency and sustainability of agricultural strategies in different countries, particularly in a context marked by donor budget constraints.
En effet, une tendance forte au désengagement est en cours aujourd’hui, notamment en France dont le gouvernement Barnier envisage un recul de 34 % des ressources destinées à l’aide publique au développement (APD). Si c’est en France que la baisse envisagée est la plus importante, d’autres pays européens ont engagé ce repli comme l’Allemagne, la Finlande ou la Grande-Bretagne. Les pays du Nord qui étaient parmi les rares économies riches à atteindre l’objectif de 0,7 % du Revenu national brut dédié à l’APD fixé par les Nations Unies. L’Union européenne qui est aussi un bailleur majeur va aussi diminuer son soutien aux pays vulnérables avec une baisse prévue de 35 % de ses crédits alloués aux Pays les moins avancés, sur la période 2025-2027 par rapport à la période précédente.
Chart 7
From Maputo to Kampala: Mixed results
En 2003, lors du Sommet de Maputo au Mozambique, les chefs d’État de l’Union africaine se sont engagés à allouer au moins 10 % de leurs budgets publics au secteur agricole, avec pour ambition d’atteindre une croissance annuelle de 6 % dans ce secteur. Il s’agissait pour les dirigeants de positionner le secteur primaire comme moteur du développement économique et social du continent. Cet engagement pris dans le cadre du Programme détaillé de développement de l’agriculture africaine (PDDAA) a été renouvelé en 2014 à Malabo, en Guinée équatoriale.
Cependant, les réalités budgétaires montrent que de nombreux pays peinent à respecter cet engagement. Selon les données du programme MAFAP que nous avons analysées, sur 19 pays, seuls 9 ont atteint la cible minimale de 10 % de dépenses publiques consacrées à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation. Si l’on exclut les dépenses rurales, considérées comme des soutiens indirects au secteur agricole, seule l’Éthiopie respecte pleinement ses engagements vis-à-vis de l’objectif de Maputo (chart 8)These data lead, in fact, to questioning the means implemented as well as the commitment and willingness of African States to effectively support their agriculture.
Du 9 au 11 janvier 2025, Kampala accueillera le Sommet extraordinaire des chefs d’État et de gouvernement de l’Union africaine. Ce sommet sera consacré à l’adoption de la nouvelle Stratégie et du Plan d’action du PDDAA pour la période 2026-2035. Cette rencontre représente une opportunité cruciale pour les États membres de réaffirmer leur engagement envers le développement agricole et de définir des actions concrètes pour atteindre les objectifs fixés. Il est impératif que les discussions aboutissent à des engagements financiers solides et à des mécanismes de suivi rigoureux, afin de transformer les promesses en réalisations tangibles pour le secteur agricole africain.
Chart 8
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Le Soutien des prix du marché (SPM)
Analyses à venir prochainement
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Le Soutien total à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation
Analyses à venir prochainement
Analyses des indicateurs de soutiens en 2022
Découvrez les analyses sur les 3 principaux indicateurs de l’Observatoire réalisées en 2022
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Les Dépenses publiques à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation (DPAA)
Que recouvre ces dépenses publiques ?
Il s’agit de tous les décaissements budgétaires/publics consacrés au développement du secteur agricole. Elles comprennent des transferts budgétaires aux producteurs, des transferts aux consommateurs pour l’accès aux produits de base et des services collectifs pour le développement du secteur agricole ( plus d’informations sur les indicateurs sont disponibles dans la methodological note).
Qui dépense le plus pour son agriculture ?
There are very large global disparities in public support for agriculture and food. Overall, The higher the income a country has, the more it spends to support its farmers. (as a proportion of the value of agricultural production) while agriculture now provides only a minor part of employment and economic growth in the country. Thus, in high-income countries, the intensity of these expenditures is more than twice that of middle-income countries (9 %) and low income (10 %).
Europe and North America, which are the two leading exporting regions of raw and processed agricultural products, are also those that spend the most on their agriculture and food.As shown in Map 1, this represents between 22 and 25 % of the value of agricultural production, a particularly high figure compared to other countries and regions, with the exception of India (24 %).
Il ne faut pas perdre de vue que les chiffres ci-dessus sont des moyennes, qui cachent d’importantes variations au sein de chaque catégorie de pays. Ainsi, l’intensité des dépenses publiques de soutien à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation dans les pays d’Océanie (Australie, Nouvelle-Zélande) est très inférieure à la moyenne des pays à haut revenu et comparable à celle de certains pays africains à faible revenu.
Des producteurs 14 fois plus aidés dans les pays riches
On observe de fortes variations au sein de chaque catégorie de pays. Ces écarts tiennent principalement aux différences dans le amount of budgetary transfers to producers. These represent the bulk of support spending in high- and middle-income countries. In contrast, in low-income countries, where producers often play a key role in the economy and employment, they receive much less support. Fiscal transfers to producers are 14 times larger in high-income countries than in low-income countries. L’Afrique subsaharienne arrive très loin derrière avec un soutien aux producteurs inférieur en moyenne à 1 % de la valeur de la production agricole. En Éthiopie, par exemple, les transferts budgétaires aux producteurs sont presque 100 fois plus faible qu’au sein de l’UE (en pourcentage de la valeur de la production agricole).
Des consommateurs peu soutenus dans les pays à revenu faible
The FARM Observatory also analyzes budgetary transfers to consumers, which notably take the form of subsidies. High-income countries are those that support food consumption the most (5 % of the value of agricultural production). These transfers are particularly high in North America where they represent 12 % of the value of agricultural production. India is also among the countries that most support food consumption.
Malgré l’insécurité alimentaire qui reste prégnante en Afrique subsaharienne, les transferts aux consommateurs en provenance du budget de l’État y sont inférieurs à 1 % de la valeur de la production agricole. Ces transferts budgétaires à la consommation en Afrique subsaharienne sont majoritairement composés d’aides aux consommateurs (98 %). Only 1 % of consumer support is devoted to processors, who are nevertheless essential to the development of agrifood sectors..
Soutiens par actifs agricoles ou par hectare : le grand écart mondial
La hiérarchie de l’intensité des dépenses publiques de soutien à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation par pays n’est pas forcément la même selon l’indicateur utilisé. Ainsi, sur la période considérée, les dépenses de soutien dans l’Union européenne, comparées aux États-Unis, étaient moins élevées en proportion de la valeur de la production agricole et de la valeur ajoutée de l’agriculture, mais sensiblement plus grandes par hectare agricole. L’écart du soutien entre pays riches, pays émergents et pays à faible revenu s’accroît considérablement quand on ramène les montants au nombre d’actifs familiaux ou salariés travaillant en agriculture. Ainsi, les dépenses publiques de soutien à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation par actif agricole, aux États-Unis, sont 80 fois supérieures à celles existant en Inde et 2 690 fois plus importantes qu’au Ghana.
Afrique subsaharienne : une agriculture indirectement soutenue
Of the 15 countries analyzed in the FARM Observatory, 10 have reached the funding target decided by African states in Maputo. In 2003 in Mozambique, the latter committed themselves through the Detailed Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) to dedicate at least 10,% of public budgets to the agricultural sector in order to give it new impetus and thus stimulate its growth to 6,% per year. This threshold of 10,% has since become the performance criterion par excellence for public support for African agriculture. However, these good results are attributable to a too large a portion of rural spending that does not directly support the sector. When only expenditure specific to agricultural activity is considered, the average level of this support is reduced by more than half, from 12 % to 5 % of the total public budget. In this case, Ethiopia becomes the only country to respect its Maputo commitment.
As in all low-income countries, Most public support for agriculture and food in sub-Saharan Africa is overwhelmingly directed towards collective services for agriculture and food. These services represent more than 80 % of total agricultural budget expenditure but two-thirds do not directly target the agricultural sector. These include, for example, rural expenditure on health, education, infrastructure, etc. However, these expenditures are essential and contribute, indirectly, to the development of the agricultural sector since the majority of rural populations work in this sector. The remaining third, directly directed towards the agricultural sector, is made up of expenditure on training (2% of collective services), extension (2 %) or agricultural infrastructure (11 %).
There The share devoted to research (3 %) remains well below the target of 1 % of the agricultural gross domestic product set by the Malabo agreements (0.29 % today). However, IFPRI argued in its Global Food Policy Report (2020) that an increase in agricultural R&D in sub-Saharan Africa, amounting to 1% of agricultural GDP, could increase productivity by 60% by 2050.
The weight of input subsidies
À la différence des pays à revenu élevé dans lesquels une grande partie des soutiens prend la forme de transferts budgétaires aux producteurs, en Afrique, ces dépenses demeurent très faibles (voir Tableau 1). Elles sont d’ailleurs affectées à plus de 90 % aux subventions à l’achat d’intrants, au détriment d’autres actions qui pourraient bénéficier tout autant, sinon plus, aux producteurs comme les subventions à la production, des soutiens aux revenus, etc. Au regard des niveaux de productivité agricole de la région, ce constat soulève de nombreuses questions quant à l’efficacité de ces subventions aux intrants (principalement des engrais) et de leurs poids dans les aides à la production.
Des budgets dépendants de l’aide extérieure
Si le soutien public qui va directement à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation demeure faible et concentré sur certaines mesures, il faut aussi rappeler que les budgets agricoles dépendent beaucoup de l’aide extérieure.
L’aide extérieure représente en moyenne 20 % des dépenses publiques de soutien à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation. Toutefois, ce constat dissimule une grande disparité entre pays dans le degré de dépendance. Cette dépendance varie par exemple de 2 % pour le Ghana (2015/17) à plus de 50 % pour le Rwanda (2016/18). En moyenne, ¾ de cette aide apportée par des donateurs extérieurs participent au financement de services collectifs pour le développement agricole, avec plus de la moitié consacrée à des dépenses rurales (éducation, santé, infrastructures…).
Il faut enfin souligner l’existence de différences dans le niveau d’exécution des budgets d’un pays à l’autre. La mise en œuvre des budgets agricoles se heurte à de nombreuses difficultés qui entravent leurs bonnes exécutions. En effet, seulement 73 % des budgets consacrés à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation sont effectivement dépensés. Le MAFAP énonce plusieurs raisons à cette situation et notamment une plus grande lenteur dans les décaissements des dépenses agricoles comparée à d’autres secteurs comme l’éducation mais aussi un non-alignement des décaissements avec les besoins du calendrier des activités agricoles.
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Le Soutien des prix du marché (SPM)
De quoi parle-t-on ?
As calculated by the OECD, the MPS expresses the monetary value of agricultural price support. Broadly speaking, the MPS translates, for each agricultural product, the gap between the domestic market price and the world price multiplied by the volume of the product. This price gap is determined in particular by border protections, health regulations, taxes, and processing, transport, and distribution costs that affect products between the farm and the wholesale or retail market. A negative MPS means that producers receive prices lower, on average, than the world reference prices. Conversely, a positive MPS will indicate prices paid to producers higher than prices paid on international markets.
Depending on whether the MPS is positive or negative, the price received by the producer is higher or lower than the prices paid on international markets. MPS can therefore be considered as an indirect measure of import protection. The more positive it is, the more the producer is protected from competition from imported products. The more negative it is, the less so. As currently available from the FARM Observatory, MPS data are incomplete and do not yet cover sub-Saharan African countries. Therefore, this MPS analysis focuses only on high- and middle-income countries (see in the methodological note the list of countries concerned). The question of price support in African countries is, however, addressed, but through another indicator: the nominal rate of protection, calculated by the Ag Incentives consortium.
A convergence of market price supports
In recent decades, the level of PMS has tended to decrease significantly in high-income countries, while gradually increasing in middle-income countries. As indicated by the graph, the average gap between these two categories of countries has narrowed considerably over time and appears to have almost closed in 2021. Indeed, this gap in the MPS, expressed as a percentage of the value of agricultural production, fell on average from 15 % in 2000-2002, to only 2 % in 2019-2021. The net decline in the MPS in high-income countries could be explained, on the one hand, by agricultural policy reforms from the end of the 1980s and, on the other hand, by the constraints resulting from the Marrakech Agreement on agriculture, in 1994 at the WTO. With regard to middle-income countries, this observation could signify a desire to strengthen or improve food security and/or the foundations for a structural transformation of economies.
However, there are significant disparities in MPS, particularly among middle-income countries. It should be noted that trends by income class are averages, which conceal significant variations within each country category. Thus, the weight of certain agricultural giants, due to their support intensity and the size of their agriculture, influences the average for these categories. This is the case, for example, of China, Brazil, and India among middle-income countries.
Why a negative SPM for some middle-income countries?
The analysis of the painting points out five middle-income countries that have negative MPS: Argentina, India, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Vietnam. This situation indicates that prices paid to producers in these countries are lower than world prices. This can be interpreted as an indirect levy or implicit taxation of producers. Negative MPS can be explained mainly by market inefficiencies (high processing and transport costs, monopoly rents, etc.), or regulations on the marketing of certain products (India) and export taxes (Argentina). These negative MPS give rise to transfers from producers to consumers and the State (in the form of taxes levied when the product is exported). For the period 2019-2021, negative MPS represented on average nearly 20% of the value of agricultural production in Argentina and India. Producers in these countries are heavily taxed for the benefit of consumers who benefit from low prices on basic products.
Africa: relatively unprotected agriculture
Since data are not available for African countries, we use the nominal rate of protection (NRP) to analyze agricultural price support. It expresses, for each agricultural product, the difference between the price paid to the producer and the border price, as a percentage of the border price. A negative NRP indicates that the producer is being "taxed" by the policies implemented and/or that existing protections are ineffective.
Thanks in part to strong import protection, agricultural price support is higher in high- and middle-income countries than in African countries. Moreover, it can be seen that the Nominal Rate of Protection in Africa remained negative throughout the period 2005-2018. In 2018, this Nominal Rate of Protection (NRP) in high-income countries was on average 30 percentage points higher than in Africa, compared to 5 percentage points higher than in middle-income countries. This change in the NRP shows that African agriculture is relatively unprotected and to a lesser extent than in other developing regions. (see FARM's study on import protections)This observation is all the more important since Public expenditure on agriculture and food (DPAA) is also much lower in African countries.
This negative NPT means that African governments are primarily protecting consumers to the detriment of agricultural producers. Indeed, sub-Saharan African states have long maintained, against the agricultural sector, un « biais urbain » qui s’est traduit par des droits de douane relativement faibles – la priorité étant donnée à l’alimentation des villes par des produits importés -, une taxation des produits agricoles exportés, etc. This situation results in African producers facing competition from low-cost imported products from countries or regions where agricultural productivity is considerably higher. This is all the more so since a number of these countries – particularly the Member States of the European Union, the United States, but also India and China – heavily subsidize their agriculture, often for a long time, which has also allowed them to build comparative advantages in this sector. However, there is a strong correlation, in different regions of the world, between the elimination of the urban, anti-agricultural bias and the level of development of several emerging countries, particularly in Asia.
Should agricultural price support be increased in Africa?
Asking this question means reopening the thorny debate on the protection of African agriculture. This debate is particularly important in the context of the redefinition of the Africa-Europe partnership and the renegotiation of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Moreover, the African continent has been committed since 2018 to the creation of an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), established in January 2021. The creation of the AfCFTA calls into question the future of trade relations between African countries as well as the level of protection of agriculture and agri-food sectors. This issue should constitute a key pillar of the African Union's political agenda at a time when the objective of food sovereignty is reaffirmed.
Currently, agricultural support in Africa is caught in a political contradiction. Spending on agricultural and food support is supposed to boost the sector's productivity. However, negative support for agricultural prices erases the effects of this spending and does not provide farmers with a climate conducive to improving production. This observation raises a broader the question of the coherence of agricultural and trade policies.
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Le Soutien total à l’agriculture et à l’alimentation
Understanding Total Support
A little background: the FARM Observatory uses three key indicators to assess governments' commitment to agriculture and food. These indicators are public spending on agriculture and food, market price support, and total support.
Two major trends have been noted:
1) Les pays qui dépendent le plus de l’agriculture dépensent le moins pour soutenir leurs agriculteurs et agricultrices;
2) Rich and emerging countries have more pronounced protectionist policies to support domestic prices in the face of competition from imported agricultural products, particularly compared to African countries which are relatively less competitive.
Let us now focus on the total support that reveals a global landscape dominated by rich countries and a rise in emerging economies. Total support to agriculture and food is equal to the sum of public spending and the agricultural price supportOver the period 2019/21, it was on average twice as high in high-income countries as in middle-income countries.
High-income countries support their agriculture and food sector on average with 29 billion pounds of the value of agricultural production, compared to 14 billion pounds for middle-income countries. However, we do not have data on agricultural price supports in low-income countries to compare them with others.
Support to agriculture: sharp decline in high-income countries, slight increase in middle-income countries
However, total support to agriculture and food in high-income countries has declined significantly over the past 20 years. It has been reduced by almost half, from 44 billion of the value of agricultural production in 2000 to 25 billion in 2021. This decline in total support is observed up to 2014 and remains attributable to to agricultural policy reforms undertaken by these countries to comply with the rules of the Agreement on Agriculture. These were signed at the end of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations which led to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994. Conversely, emerging countries have increased their support for agriculture to promote the development of their agricultural sector and ensure their food security.
These developments must, however, be viewed with caution, as total support automatically decreases when world agricultural prices increase, even if agricultural policies remain unchanged. This caution is justified by the method of calculating market price support. This is because it is calculated for a given agricultural product by multiplying the quantity produced by a price gap. This price gap is itself obtained from a difference between the domestic market price and the world price of the product concerned. Therefore, any increase in the world price of the product has the mechanical effect of reducing the difference between the latter (world price) and the domestic market price and, consequently, a reduction in market price support and total support.
The end of convergence?
As the graph showing the evolution of total support shows, in recent years there has been a widening of the gap in total support to agriculture and food between high- and middle-income countries after a long period of trend convergence. Since 2015, this gap has been linked to different agricultural support strategies. Public expenditures in support of agriculture and food (budgetary transfers to producers or consumers, investments in research, infrastructure, training, etc.) have thus increased in high-income countries since 2014. In middle-income countries, apart from a slight increase of 1 % in 2020, notably to support the agricultural sector in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, the level of these budgetary disbursements has remained relatively constant over the last two decades. The increase in total support to agriculture and food in these countries is attributable to market price support policies such as border measures (customs duties, export subsidies and taxes, or import and export quotas) and non-tariff measures (health regulations).
Although they are at different levels in rich countries and in emerging countries, most of the total support is provided in the form of budgetary expendituresThese public expenditures reach more than 75 % of the total support of high-income countries and represent no less than 60 % in emerging countries.
Argentina and Vietnam: negative support
Typically, negative support policies often aim to achieve food security objectives by offering low prices to consumers, or to mobilize budgetary resources by collecting tax revenues through export taxes on certain agricultural products. Although there are significant differences between countries, it should be noted that this type of support characterizes some middle-income countries. This occurs when the monetary value of agricultural price support is lower than public expenditures on agriculture. Argentina and Vietnam are examples, with negative price support policies., respectively -20 % and -9 % of the value of agricultural production while public expenditure is only 1 % and 4 %. Thus, their total support to agriculture and food is reduced to -19 % and -5% of the value of agricultural production. In other words, for Argentina, this means that the State gives on one hand 1 % of the value of agricultural production in support of its farmers, to take back 20 % with the other via export taxes for example.
India also provides similar support to its farmers, but to a lesser extent: it does not take out more than it gives. With government spending and market price support of 24 and -19 billion pounds respectively, total support to agriculture and food is 5 billion pounds of the value of agricultural production. It should be noted, however, that Argentina, India and Vietnam have competitive agriculture. and are major exporters of agricultural products in the world, which allows them to practice such policies without compromising the prosperity of their agricultural sectors.
African states must provide more support to agriculture
In the absence of comparable data to assess total support to agriculture and food in sub-Saharan Africa, previous analyses on the nominal rate of protection And public support spending permettent de donner une idée du soutien global à l’agriculture. Elles montrent que la faible compétitivité des filières agricoles de ces pays, combinée à une faible protection contre les importations de produits à bas prix et fortement subventionnés, réduit l’efficacité des dépenses publiques à l’agriculture, qui sont en plus insuffisantes. Pourtant, l’agriculture en Afrique manque cruellement d’investissements et de protection pour relever les nombreux défis qui la concernent. Il apparaît donc essentiel que le soutien à l’agriculture soit intensifié en Afrique, par les gouvernements avec des politiques publiques qui abordent le secteur sous l’angle plus large des chaînes de valeurs, au-delà de la production agricole. En effet, une approche systémique de l’agriculture, du champ à l’assiette avec des mesures de protection sociale incluant des stratégies en matière de nutrition, mais aussi des politiques de conservation de la biodiversité apparaît primordiale. D’autant plus que les effets du changement climatique vont peser lourdement sur les capacités du continent à produire et nourrir une population en forte croissance. Le rôle des partenaires techniques et financiers est dans ce contexte capital pour accompagner ces transformations.
Le second sommet de Dakar sur la souveraineté alimentaire et la résilience semble indiquer une volonté de redonner de l’importance à l’agriculture dans les politiques africaines, mais encore faudrait-il passer des intentions aux actes pour réaliser le potentiel agricole et alimentaire du continent.
