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This review assesses the performance of Colombian agriculture over the last two decades, evaluates Colombian agricultural policy reforms and provides recommendations to address key challenges in the future. The evaluation is based on the approach that agriculture policy should be evidence-based and carefully designed and implemented to support productivity, competitiveness and sustainability, while avoiding unnecessary distortions to production decisions and to trade. The report includes a special chapter focusing on agricultural innovation.

This chapter looks at the capacity and incentives for the adoption of innovation and highlights key challenges. It starts by providing an assessment of technical assistance services. Training and technical assistance are critical to facilitate farmers’ access to technology and knowledge and contribute to facilitate farmers’ effective participation in innovation networks and ability to formulate their specific demands. In Colombia, technical assistance services are fragmented and lack of a comprehensive framework that could ensure co-ordination of efforts, improve participation and exchanges of information. The chapter then considers the key issues relating to the level of education in the agricultural sector. As in many countries, agriculture-related sciences fail to attract students and enrolments are not commensurate with the importance of the sector for the economy. This does not seem to be linked to inadequate supply of courses and scholarships, but to the lower salaries below PhD level, and the insecurity experienced in rural areas.

Colombia is the fifth largest and the third most populous country in Latin America, with a surface of 1.1 million km2 and a population of 47 million people. The only South American country that borders both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, Colombia also has abundant agricultural land and fresh water, is exceptionally biodiverse and is rich in natural resources such as nickel, copper, iron, coal, natural gas, oil, gold, silver, platinum, and emeralds.

This chapter examines the agricultural policy framework in Colombia since 1990. It first looks at the main priorities of agricultural and rural development policy concern over the past 20 years. The chapter then provides a description of the sector’s institutional arrangements at central and local levels, as well as of the capacity and reach of entities that are affiliated and linked to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR). The chapter looks at the roles that MADR and its related entities, as well as other Ministries, have in developing and implementing policy instruments to achieve stated objectives. It also presents the main producer associations in Colombia and their interaction with the governmental entities. The institutional framework for designing and implementing agricultural policies appears rather complex which increments the risk of overlapping activities particularly in the context of limited co-ordination between entities.

This chapter outlines the geographic, demographic and political characteristics of Colombia. Colombia is the fifth largest and the third most populous country in Latin America, with a surface of 1.1 million km2 and a population of 47 million people. The country enjoys a privileged geographical position being the only South American country that borders both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and is rich in terms of natural resources. The chapter goes on to look at the macroeconomic performance of Colombia and its socio-economic context. In the early 1990s, ambitious economic liberalisation reforms were undertaken. However, in 1998-99, Colombia’s economy experienced a severe economic and financial crisis, which triggered a series of reforms that fostered macroeconomic stabilisation and spurred growth. The chapter also considers the characteristics of the business environment and identifies infrastructure challenges.

This Review of Agricultural Policies: Colombia is one of a series of reviews of national agricultural policies undertaken by the OECD’s Committee for Agriculture. On 29 May 2013, the OECD Council decided to open accession discussions with Colombia. On 19 September 2013, the Council adopted a Roadmap for the Accession of Colombia to the OECD Convention [C(2013)110/FINAL] (hereafter “the Roadmap”) setting out the terms, conditions and process for accession. The Roadmap provides that in order to allow the OECD Council to take an informed decision, Colombia will undergo in-depth reviews by the relevant OECD technical committees, including the Committee for Agriculture, which will then provide the Council with a formal opinion evaluating Colombia's willingness and ability to implement OECD legal instruments, and assessing Colombia’s policies and practices as compared to OECD best policies and practices.

This chapter provides an overview of the main actors in the Colombian Agricultural Innovation System and their roles in creating the institutional framework to spur innovation, including institutions that ensure the governance of the system. The chapter also presents the framework developed at OECD to analyse the role of the government in fostering innovation in the food and agricultural sector. In Colombia, there is a diversity of institutions involved in innovation, with different mechanisms for defining priorities and monitoring activities. The chapter thus identifies the key challenges in terms of governance and co‐ordination.

This chapter presents the assessment and policy recommendations following from the analysis undertaken in the OECD Review of Agricultural Policies in Colombia. A key objective of Colombia’s government is to boost the agricultural sector as an engine of economic growth and international integration. However, the sector faces a wide series of structural and institutional challenges that hinder this objective. To achieve its agricultural sustainable growth objective and overcome pressing structural challenges, Colombia needs to strengthen policies that support long-term competitiveness. Government resources must be committed to removing the significant deficiencies in transport infrastructure, land tenure system, water and land management and infrastructure, plant and animal health and food safety systems, market information systems, education, and research and development. At the same time, institutional arrangements are weak at the departmental and municipality levels, calling for improvements in the governance and co-ordination of agricultural policy.

This chapter examines the key issues that have shaped the evolution of the Colombian agricultural sector and that have conditioned policy responses over the last two decades. Agriculture is an important sector representing 17.5% of total employment and contributing to 5.2% of GDP in 2013. The chapter looks at the land tenure system and farm structures, the changes in input use, as well as the evolution of agro-food trade flows and the links to the environment. Issues relating to farm incomes and the rural socio-economic context are also considered in this chapter. Colombia, like other Latin American countries, is characterised by a highly dualistic distribution of land ownership, the roots of which can be traced back to the colonial era. The sector is dominated by small-scale productive units, with 67.6% of owners covering plots smaller than 5 ha (4.2% of agricultural land) and only 0.4% of owners holding land plots higher than 500 ha (representing nevertheless 46.5% of land). Natural resources and the environment are under strong pressure, partly due to land use conflicts, soil erosion, and inadequate water use.

This chapter discusses in detail domestic and trade agricultural policy measures in Colombia since 1990. It first provides an overview of programmes and budgetary allocations in the agricultural sector. The majority of programmes cover very broad and different areas and are implemented through a bundle of policy instruments, the impact of which can be difficult to measure and evaluate. A considerable share of the budgetary allocation is increasingly directed to input subsidies and payments based on output. Producer associations also implement MADR’s programmes aside their own programmes. General services provision in Colombia includes agricultural knowledge generation and transfer, inspection and control, infrastructure (including land restructuring), marketing and promotion. The chapter then analyses the evolution of agricultural trade policies. Tariffs applied in the agricultural sector have been much higher than in other sectors during the last two decades. In recent years however, Colombia has signed and enforced several FTAs with key trading partners, under which it has committed to gradually phase out a wide range of agricultural border measures.

This chapter examines the support provided to agricultural producers in Colombia for the period 1992-2013. The Producer Support Estimate (PSE) components – market price support and budgetary transfers – are calculated for 1992-2013. The chapter looks at the evolution of producer support over this period in parallel to an analysis of general services provided for the agricultural sector, such as infrastructure, agricultural knowledge and agricultural knowledge transfer, or farm restructuring. Colombia’s %PSE for the period 2011-13 is estimated at 19%, ranking slightly above the OECD average (18%) and indicating that almost a fifth of gross receipts of agricultural producers is generated by support policies. This support has not substantially changed during the period covered. Market price support (MPS) has been the main component of producer support, accounting for 81% of the PSE in 2011-13. The analysis identifies the support provided to individual crops and livestock products, contributing to 76% of the value of agricultural production, including coffee, rice, maize, poultry, sugar, milk, beef and pigmeat.

This chapter highlights key challenges related to investment and co-operation in agricultural innovation. The public sector continues to be the main source of funding for agriculture R&D, whether performed by public or private organisations. The chapter provides an overview of the diversity of sources for public funding of R&D activities in Colombia, which are complemented by significant contributions from parafiscal funds (producer associations’ commodity funds) and royalties, and highlights the challenges as regards their co-ordination. It goes on to look at the mechanisms through which funds are being allocated. There is also a discussion of mechanisms facilitating the sharing of knowledge and co-operation at national and international level.

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