Many OECD countries have made progress toward meeting environmental challenges in recent years. In particular, farmers in many OECD countries have improved the management of nutrients, pesticides and water, using less of these inputs per unit of land. Farmers have also made progress in adopting environmentally beneficial practices, such as conservation tillage, improved manure storage and soil nutrient testing.
Even so, there remains much work to be done. In many OECD countries, farmland bird populations are declining, signaling a loss of biodiversity in agricultural systems. The emissions of greenhouse gases and ammonia continue to pose a challenge to the sector, with increases over the past several decades.
There is an important role for policymakers to play in addressing these issues, for example by better targeting agri-environmental policies to farms with the largest environmental impacts and by reorienting distortionary forms of support to farmers to support environmental outcomes.
