The Agricultural Outlook 2018-2027 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations and input from collaborating member countries to provide an annual assessment of prospects for the coming decade of national, regional and global agricultural commodity markets. The baseline projection is not a forecast about the future, but rather a plausible scenario based on specific assumptions regarding the macroeconomic conditions, the agriculture and trade policy settings, weather conditions, longer term productivity trends and international market developments.
The Agricultural Outlook is prepared jointly by the OECD and FAO Secretariats.
At the OECD, the baseline projections and Outlook report were prepared by members of the Trade and Agriculture Directorate: Marcel Adenäuer, Jonathan Brooks (Head of Division), Koen Deconinck, Annelies Deuss, Armelle Elasri (publication co-ordinator), Gen Furuhashi, Hubertus Gay (Outlook co-ordinator), Céline Giner, Gaëlle Gouarin, Claude Nenert, Arnaud Pincet and Grégoire Tallard of the Agro-Food Trade and Markets Division, and for fish and seafood by James Innes of the Natural Resources Policy Division. Michael Ryan provided input for the antimicrobial resistance box. The OECD Secretariat is grateful for the contributions provided by visiting experts Joanna Hitchner (United States Department of Agriculture), Roel Jongeneel (Wageningen Economic Research, the Netherlands) and Yu Wen (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences). The partial stochastic modelling builds on work by the Economics of Agriculture Unit of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, namely Sergio René Araujo Enciso, Simone Pieralli, Thomas Chatzopoulos and Ignacio Pérez Domínguez. The organisation of meetings and publication preparation were provided by Kelsey Burns, Helen Maguire and Michèle Patterson. Technical assistance in the preparation of the Outlook database was provided by Eric Espinasse and Frano Ilicic. Many other colleagues in the OECD Secretariat and member country delegations provided useful comments on earlier drafts of the report.
At the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the baseline projections and Outlook report were prepared by members of the Trade and Markets Division (EST) under the leadership of Boubaker Ben-Belhassen (EST Division Director) and Josef Schmidhuber (EST Division Deputy Director) with the overall guidance of Kostas Stamoulis (Assistant Director-General, Economic and Social Development Department) and by the Economic and Social Development Department Management team. The core projections team consisted of: Katia Covarrubias, Fabio De Cagno, Sergio René Araujo Enciso, Emily Carroll, Gloria Cicerone, Holger Matthey (Team Leader) and Javier Sanchez Alvarez. For fish and seafood, the team consisted of Stefania Vannuccini from the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, with technical support from Pierre Charlebois. Advice on fishmeal and fish oil issues was provided by Enrico Bachis from the Marine Ingredients Organisation (IFFO). Commodity expertise was provided by Abdolreza Abbassian, ElMamoun Amrouk, Stanislaw Czaplicki Cabezas, Paulo Augusto Lourenço Dias Nunes, Erica Doro, Alice Fortuna, Jean Luc Mastaki Namegabe, Shirley Mustafa, Adam Prakash, Peter Thoenes, G. A. Upali Wickramasinghe and Di Yang. Input on special topics and boxes was provided by Sabine Altendorf, Tracy Davids, Allan Hruska, Jonathan Pound and Monika Tothova. We thank visiting expert Tracy Davids from the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Pretoria. Research assistance and database preparation were provided by David Bedford, Julie Claro, Yanyun Li, Emanuele Marocco and Marco Milo. This edition also benefited from comments made by other colleagues from FAO and member country institutions. Araceli Cardenas, Yongdong Fu, Jessica Mathewson, Raffaella Rucci and Juan Luis Salazar provided invaluable assistance with publication and communication issues.
Chapter 2 of the Outlook, “The Middle East and North Africa: Prospects and challenges”, was prepared by the Secretariats at FAO and OECD. Drafting was led by David Sedik with overall support from the FAO Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa under the leadership of Abdessalam Ould Ahmed, (Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative). Regional projections and analyses were provided by analysts from the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Pretoria, headed by Prof. Ferdinand Meyer.
Finally, information and feedback provided by the International Cotton Advisory Committee, International Dairy Federation, International Fertilizer Association, International Grains Council, International Sugar Organization, Marine Ingredients Organisation (IFFO) and World Association of Beet and Cane Growers is gratefully acknowledged.
The complete Agricultural Outlook, including the fully documented Outlook database, including historical data and projections, can be accessed through the OECD-FAO joint internet site: www.agri-outlook.org. The published Agricultural Outlook 2018-2027 is contained in the OECD’s iLibrary.