The multifunctionality of agriculture – A key issue of the OECD
The orientation of the working programme of the OECD Agriculture Directorate was set by the meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture in March 1998. At this meeting, the Europeans successfully advocated the multifunctionality of agriculture, against the will of the USA, Australia and New Zealand, which up to that time had dominated the agenda completely.
Until the meeting of the OECD Ministers of Agriculture in May1998, the OECD Agriculture Directorate had been involved almost exclusively with topics related to trade liberalisation and subsidy cutbacks, so that the European Union was predominantly trapped in a defensive position. In the run-up to the meeting, this topic was still so controversial that in certain phases it seemed as if the negotiations were bound to fail completely. Not until the last second, during the meeting of ministers itself, was a compromise successfully agreed for the communiqué of the ministers of agriculture.Thanks to the approval of all the OECD ministers, the multifunctionality of agriculture was accepted as a key issue. This means that, ever since, support for farmers must be viewed from another perspective in all international negotiations in the field of agriculture. Up until the time of the OECD meeting of ministers, subsidies were viewed almost exclusively as a distorting factor in international trade; not until afterwards was there an understanding that agriculture could perform functions other than the production of food and biomass. If these functions represent an added value for society, then society should pay for them, since the diminution of agriculture and thus of the performance of such functions results in significant costs.
This change in perspective not only influenced the further work of the OECD but also had a concrete impact on the agricultural policy of its member states.
The Agriculture Directorate of the OECD therefore worked out several documents on the multifunctionality of agriculture, such as papers on an Analytic Framework of Multifunctionality [Doc.-Ref. COM/AGR/APM/TD/WP(2000)3/FINAL] and its corresponding Political Implications [Doc.-Ref. AGR/CA/APM(2002)10/FINAL].
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Ministerkommunique 1998 (ENG 23,7 kB )
15.12.2005, Lebensministerium III/3