Featured publications
No. 63 Agricultural Outlook 2025–2034: Medium-term prospects for global agricultural commodity markets
27/03/2026
The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2025–2034 presents a ten-year baseline scenario for global agricultural and fish markets, highlighting expected developments...
No. 57 Trade in fisheries and aquaculture products: Global markets, production, and food security
27/03/2026
International trade in fisheries and aquaculture products plays a critical role in global food security, employment and income generation, with aquatic...
No. 61 The dynamic impact of global shipping costs on the food import bill
27/03/2026
Maritime transportation is essential for countries to access basic goods in global markets and to support food security and nutrition, as almost one-quarter...
No. 62 Trade and Nutrition: Association and policy approaches
27/03/2026
Trade is fundamental to agrifood systems, connecting surplus and deficit regions and supporting a more reliable supply of safe, diverse and sufficient...
Publications
No. 43 How can trade and trade policies help shape adaptation to climate change?
24/10/2021
This policy brief provides information on the relation between climate change and trade, the role that trade can play as a climate change adaptation instrument, and the trade policies that can be used to strengthen the adaptive role of trade.
No. 42 Medium-term prospects and challenges for global agriculture
23/10/2021
This brief presents an assessment of the ten-year prospects and challenges for agricultural commodity and fish markets at national, regional and global levels based on the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030.
No. 41 Recent trends and prospects in the world cotton market and policy developments
22/10/2021
This policy brief provides an overview of the key market, trade and policy drivers shaping the international cotton market, including developments prospects and challenges for the sector.
No. 40 Leveraging digital trade for efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems
21/10/2021
This policy brief aims to inform Members about the opportunities offered by digitalization in enhancing more efficient and transparent agrifood trade, while discussing the challenges of scaling up digital trade.
No. 37 COVID-19: Agricultural trade and policy responses during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020
05/07/2021
Measures adopted around the world to contain the COVID-19 outbreak helped curb the spread of the virus and lowered the pressure on health systems. However, they also affected the global trading system, and the supply and demand of agricultural and food products. In response to concerns over food security and food safety worldwide, many countries reacted immediately to apply policy measures aiming to limit potentially adverse impacts on domestic markets. Covering the first half of 2020, this policy brief provides an overview of short-term changes in policy measures related to agricultural trade that countries adopted in response to the pandemic.
No. 39 Trade in fisheries products: fisheries sustainability, fishing capacity, and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
05/07/2021
his policy brief provides an overview of the main fish pillars associated with the current WTO mandate on fisheries subsidies – overfishing and overfished stocks, capacity, and Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. It also addresses traditional scientific concepts like the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) in determining overfishing, the main FAO instruments associated with capacity and combatting IUU fishing, and the Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMOs) and flag, port, and coastal States.
No. 38 Trade in fisheries and aquaculture products: a major international commodity
05/07/2021
This policy brief provides an overview of the latest statistic data on fisheries and aquaculture production and trade, highlighting the importance of international trade to many countries, particularly developing countries. It is also stressed the rank of fisheries and aquaculture trade in comparison with other animal proteins. Small-scale fisheries are also analyzed, including their singularity and characterization issues.
No. 36 The role of digital technologies in livestock traceability and trade
10/09/2020
This policy brief provides an overview on the role of digital technologies in optimizing traceability in trade for animals and animal products. It highlights the ways in which digital technologies can the enhance performance for monitoring and controlling animal disease, managing food safety and fraud risks, complying with animal production and food standards, facilitating trade and raising consumer awareness.
No. 35 Trade finance and digital technologies: Facilitating access to international markets
07/08/2020
This policy brief provides an overview of how digital technologies can help facilitate access to trade finance for market participants, in particular micro, small and medium sized enterprises, by addressing numerous challenges in traditional trade finance.
No. 34 Importance of agriculture and trade policy coherence for agricultural transformation in Africa
08/10/2019
This policy brief is based on the FAO (2018) report “Policy coherence for agricultural transformation in African least developed countries: Aligning agriculture and trade policymaking processes”. The report presents the results of the Multi-partner Programme Support Mechanism (FMM) Project on Trade related capacity development for food security and nutrition in Eastern and Southern Africa, implemented by FAO and focusing on four least developed countries in Africa: Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia.