This new edition of the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook provides a comprehensive medium-term baseline for agricultural commodity markets at national, regional and global levels, along with an initial scenario which explores the impact of COVID-19. This preliminary analysis suggests that dramatically lower economic growth in 2020 could contribute to a further drop in agricultural commodity prices, at least in the short run. If COVID-19 containment measures are effective, and the global economy begins to rebound in 2021, our analysis also suggests that agricultural commodity demand and prices will gradually return to baseline levels over the following years. Assuming global economic growth of 3.4% per annum, and no major disruptions to the international trading system, the Outlook projects global agriculture and fisheries production to increase by about 1.4% per year over the coming decade. Productivity growth is expected to continue to outpace growth in demand, and real prices of most commodities covered in the Outlook are predicted to decline over the decade.

Average yields are also influenced by harvest failures caused by drought or locust plagues, which are frequent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, these trends in cereal yields highlight the need for increased technology transfer across world regions in order to further reduce yield gaps.
Nevertheless, sustained growth in cereal yields in all regions will enable most of global output growth to be achieved without an expansion in the cropland area.

The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2020-2029 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, incorporating expertise from collaborating member countries and international commodity organisations. It provides market projections for national, regional and global supply and demand of major agricultural commodities, biofuel and fish.
During the preparation of the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2020-2029, the exact effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural markets were still largely unknown and they were therefore not incorporated in the baseline projections. Nevertheless, the Outlook aims to outline the channels of transmission of COVID-19 impacts on the various food and agriculture sectors.
Supplementary information can be found at www.agri-outlook.org.