Foreword

Policies for the Future of Farming and Food in the Netherlands is part of a series of country studies that apply the OECD Agro-Food Productivity-Sustainability-Resilience Policy Framework (PSR), an evidence-based approach to assess if the policy environment is conducive to achieving sustainable agricultural productivity growth and increased resilience. To date, the PSR Framework has been applied to reviews of Australia, Brazil, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, Estonia, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, and the United States.

Reconciling productivity, sustainability and resilience is a challenge common to all countries, but the solutions are unique to a country’s specific context and objectives. Following an evidence-based analysis and the comparison of performance indicators across countries, PSR reviews offer country-specific policy recommendations that aim to improve the agriculture and food systems policies of the country under review. These reviews draw upon many data sources, including the OECD Agri-Environmental Indicators and rely on close cooperation with officials and researchers in the study country as well as OECD peers to make recommendations that are relevant, timely and helpful.

This report builds upon previous work: the 2015 report Innovation, Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability in the Netherlands. That report found that adoption of innovation has underpinned high levels of productivity growth, but questioned whether continued marginal improvements in technology would be enough to sustainably deliver productivity growth. The evidence presented here provides some answers to this question while identifying new challenges and opportunities for the agriculture sector in the Netherlands.

This report is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD.