LAO: Long-term modelling for agriculture

Abstract

There are increasing challenges to the future of agriculture, such as climate change, food security and food scarcity, which will manifest over the long-term. While the majority of economic and trade modelling tools/approaches assess short- and medium-term outlooks. The Long Agricultural Outlook model (LAO) was developed collaboratively between the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Agribusiness and Economics Research (AERU) in order to address this gap in analysis. The model aims to both analyse changes in policy and trade dynamics over the long-term (up to 2050) and to supplement medium-term models with longer foresight for price developments in the agricultural sector. The model uses highly aggregated region and commodity groupings in a partial equilibrium framework to project the state of agriculture out to 2050. As the model is currently being validated, this paper will focus on the structure and development of the model, and present preliminary results.