Government expenditures in agriculture (2001–2022). Global and regional trends

Since 2012, FAO collects Government Expenditure on Agriculture (GEA) data through a questionnaire sent annually in May to more than 190 countries. Government expenditure refers to expenditure by the highest level of government for which data are available.

Government expenditures reflect countries’ priorities in terms of programmes and sectors and can be used as a direct response to cushion the impacts of economic and social challenges such as the COVID 19 pandemic, natural disasters or increasing inflation. 

The last data update refers to the period 2001-2022.

Main findings:

• In 2022, global public expenditures in nominal terms reached USD 36 trillion, or 36.7 percent of the global gross domestic product. Out of the total expenditures, the amount that went to agriculture reached an all-time high USD 749 billion.
• In line with the overall upward trend in total government expenditure, spending on agriculture increased over time. Its overall share in the total expenditure in 2022 (2.1 percent) reflects a recovery from the pandemic and is only marginally below the 2019 level.
• Asia recorded the highest percentage of government expenditure allocated to agriculture (reaching 5.0 percent in 2022), with Eastern Asia and Southern Asia driving the increase.
• In 2021–2022, the countries with the highest share of agriculture in government expenditure were Mali (13.5 percent), Bhutan (10.6 percent) and India (7.3 percent).
• The global Agriculture Orientation Index (AOI) declined from the 2015 baseline (0.50) to 0.43 in 2021 and recovered to 0.48 in 2022.