Global Farm Support Hit Record $950 Billion in 2025, OECD Finds
03 November 2026, Paris, FR: Government support for agriculture around the world exceeded $950 billion in 2025, nearly 15% above 2023 levels, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2026 report, released on November 2. The study, which covers 56 countries, found that support rose to 19.1% of total agricultural production value, up from 17.6%, reversing a long-term decline in farm subsidies as a share of output.
The OECD attributed the jump to a string of overlapping shocks: the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, extreme weather including record heat across Europe, and the onset of an El Niño cycle. Together, these events strained agricultural supply chains and pushed up food prices, prompting governments to step up support for farmers.
Price support was the single biggest driver of the increase, the report found, particularly in emerging economies. The OECD was critical of this approach, arguing that propping up domestic prices distorts markets, discourages efficient production, and ultimately raises costs for consumers rather than building long-term resilience in the food system.
Spending on so-called general services, the category that covers infrastructure, research, and innovation rather than direct payments to farmers, held steady at about 2.4% of production value. The OECD said that level of investment is insufficient given the scale of the productivity challenge facing global agriculture.
Productivity growth lags behind support
The report’s most striking figure may be its productivity data. Global agricultural productivity growth slowed to just 0.8% a year between 2014 and 2023, down sharply from 1.8% a year in the 1991 to 2000 period. That slowdown has occurred even as overall support to the sector has climbed, suggesting that money is not flowing to the investments most likely to lift long-term output.
OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said the findings should prompt governments to rethink how they allocate agricultural budgets. “More support does not always mean better outcomes,” he said, adding that distortive measures raise costs for households while reducing the efficiency of the sector as a whole.
The report comes as several major economies are already moving to overhaul their farm support systems. The European Union is in the process of simplifying the administrative rules under its Common Agricultural Policy, while the United States and other large agricultural exporters continue to debate the balance between crisis-driven payments and longer-term investment in research and infrastructure.
The OECD’s broader recommendation is for governments to reform or phase out the most market-distorting forms of support, such as price guarantees and output-linked payments, in favor of targeted spending on research, extension services, risk management tools, and sustainable productivity gains. The organisation has made similar recommendations in previous editions of the report, but the 2026 figures show the gap between crisis spending and productivity investment has widened rather than narrowed.
Price support’s dominance in emerging markets stood in contrast to patterns in wealthier economies, where direct income support and environmental payments make up a larger share of total assistance. The report noted that this divergence reflects differing fiscal capacities and the more immediate food security pressures facing lower-income producing nations during a period of elevated global food prices.
The OECD’s agricultural policy monitoring series has tracked support levels across member and partner countries for more than three decades, using a standardized methodology that allows for year-on-year comparisons of producer support estimates, general services spending, and productivity indicators across very different national farm policy systems.
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