The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2024-2033 provides a consensus assessment of the ten-year prospects for agricultural commodity and fish markets.
This Outlook edition reveals important trends. Emerging economies will be pivotal in shaping the global agricultural landscape, with India expected to overtake China as the leading player. Yet calorie intake growth in low-income countries is projected to be only 4%. Agriculture’s global greenhouse gas intensity is projected to decline, although direct emissions from agriculture will likely increase by 5%. If food loss and waste could be halved, however, this would have the potential to reduce both global agricultural GHG emissions by 4% and the number of undernourished people by 153 million by 2030.
Well-functioning international agricultural commodity markets will remain vital for global food security and rural livelihoods. Expected developments should keep real international reference prices on a slightly declining trend over the next ten years, although environmental, social, geopolitical, and economic factors could significantly alter these projections.
This 20th joint edition of the Agricultural Outlook comprises four parts.
Part 1: Agricultural and food markets: Trends and prospects (Chapter 1) outlines key projections and insights on challenges facing agri-food systems over the coming decade. The chapter presents the evolution of global agricultural markets over the past 20 years (Section 1.1), recent market developments (Section 1.2), and underlying macroeconomic and policy assumptions (Section 1.3). It discusses the trends and prospects for consumption (Section 1.4), production (Section 1.5), trade (Section 1.7), and prices (Section 1.8). This year, the Outlook highlights the significance of food loss and waste for food security, resource use and the sustainability of food systems (Section 1.6).
Part 2: Regional briefs (Chapter 2) explores key trends and issues in the agricultural sector across the seven FAO regions. The regional aspects of production, consumption and trade projections are presented for Developed and East Asia (Section 2.1), South and Southeast Asia (Section 2.2), Sub-Saharan Africa (Section 2.3), Near East and North Africa (Section 2.4), Europe and Central Asia (Section 2.5), North America (Section 2.6), and Latin America and the Caribbean (Section 2.7).
Part 3: Commodity chapters describe recent market developments and medium-term projections for consumption, production, trade, and prices for the commodities covered in the Outlook. Each of the nine chapters — Cereals (Chapter 3), Oilseeds and oilseed products (Chapter 4), Sugar (Chapter 5), Meat (Chapter 6), Dairy and dairy products (Chapter 7), Fish (Chapter 8), Biofuels (Chapter 9), Cotton (Chapter 10), and Other products (Chapter 11) — concludes with a discussion of the main issues and uncertainties affecting markets over the next ten years.
Part 4: Statistical Annex presents projections for production, consumption, trade, and prices for agricultural commodities, fish, and biofuels, as well as macroeconomic and policy assumptions. Market evolution over the Outlook period is described using annual growth rates and data for the final year (2033) relative to a three-year base period (2021-23). The Statistical Annex is available online but not included in the printed version of the Outlook.
Cite: OECD/FAO (2024), OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2024-2033, OECD Publishing, Paris/FAO, Rome, https://doi.org/10.1787/4c5d2cfb-en.
