Reforming harmful subsidies in agriculture and food systems

Reforming subsidies requires a re-evaluation of public spending programs and repurposing subsidies that are ineffective, inefficient, or counterproductive. Reforms can be difficult and could have unintended consequences unless planned and implemented based on national and local contexts and priorities, ensuring protection for vulnerable households while also contributing to national sustainable economic development goals. Multiple reports summarize lessons from experiences from around the world and provide insights to guide policymakers in their efforts to reform subsidies in agriculture and food systems at the policy level. Below is a summary of steps that can be undertaken concurrently, as recommended by the World Bank, the BIOFIN initiative, and WWF, to reform harmful subsidies:

• Identify and assess subsidies that are likely to be having a harmful impact on nature:
  • The initial assessment of expenditure should ideally be conducted by an independent body, such as civil society organizations or supreme audit institutions (independent national-level auditors) to ensure transparency and credibility.
  • Establish an appropriate expert task force to lead the review and build public and political support.
  • Define the scope of assessment and conduct a desk study of best practices.
  • Map and quantify existing subsidies across key sectors.
  • Screen subsidies for negative environmental, biodiversity and social impacts.
  • Estimate the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of subsidy reform.
  • Prioritize subsidies associated with the highest level of risk for in-depth assessment.
  • Report findings and validate them with key stakeholders.
  • Draft a final report on subsidies with high redesign potential.
  • Increase transparency on support policy design to inform any need for reform in the future.
  • Fisheries-specific: Link data on support recipients and their fishing activities to the sustainability of their fishery (mandated by 2022 WTO-FSA), to inform tailored support programs.
• Design and evaluate reform options:
  • Develop criteria and indicators for a multi-criteria assessment of subsidy redesign.
  • Conduct an in-depth review of prioritized subsidies.
  • Identify potential policy alternatives, including removal, modification (e.g. targeting support conditionally according to eligibility criteria based on sustainable behaviour to create incentives), or repurposing.
  • Hold validation meetings with key stakeholders.
  • Assess potential environmental, socio-cultural, human rights and economic impacts, considering gender, youth, vulnerable and Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and Local Communities (LCs), who often rely on smallholder food systems and are disproportionately affected by subsidy reform. Pay particular attention to the effective recognition and protection of cultural rights (of small-scale fisheries) and of their ecological knowledge and customary norms.
  • Clarify how ministries and agencies will coordinate and consider the sequencing of reform efforts, particularly across sectors, to determine if certain sectors or reforms should be prioritized.
  • Link reform efforts to international processes and targets where possible- e.g. Target 18 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which requires parties to the CBD to inventory environmentally harmful subsidies by 2025 and initiate their reform by 2030.
• Support community-led solution pathways and build public and political support:
  • Map interest groups to understand stakeholders and their incentives.
  • Develop clear and inclusive communication strategies to increase transparency and trust.
  • Engage with key stakeholders, including businesses, civil society, and policymakers, as well with the media and the public to build broader awareness and support for reform.
• Implement a redesign strategy:
  • Develop multiple redesign scenarios (e.g., 2–3 transition options).
  • Conduct an ex-ante impact assessment for each scenario.
  • Implement complementary fiscal reforms to mitigate market distortions.
  • Introduce regulatory and policy adjustments to support sustainable outcomes.
• Mitigate social and economic disruptions:
  • Design compensation mechanisms for vulnerable groups (e.g., cash transfers, safety nets).
  • Support affected firms, workers and fishers through training and adaptation programs.
  • Provide targeted social protection to minimize poverty impacts.
• Reinvest revenue from subsidy reform:
  • Redirect savings toward sustainable development priorities and the progressive realization of core economic, social and cultural rights (e.g., health, education, infrastructure, community-led initiatives).
  • Fund environmental and biodiversity programs and strengthen fisheries management and enforcement as a substitute for harmful subsidies.
  • Strengthen institutions to improve governance and policy implementation.
• Ensure effective coordination and implementation:
  • Phase out subsidies in a structured manner to allow gradual adjustments.
  • Sequence reforms carefully to reduce price shocks and economic disruptions.
  • Ensure cross-government coordination to align economic, social, and environmental policies.

Governments with limited administrative and technical capacity, coupled with governance and financial challenges, such as inadequate information, infrastructure, fiscal mismanagement, market constraints, or systemic risks, may struggle to implement targeted alternatives after subsidy removal, making transition programs or compensatory measures difficult and increasing the risk of social instability. The Word Bank recommends the following policy measures to complement subsidy reforms:

In the agriculture sector:

• Increasing access to credit to enable farmers to purchase fertilizer and machinery,
• Providing incentives to protect natural land areas, such as payment for ecosystem services,
• Investing in public goods such as infrastructure,
• Research and development, and agricultural extension facilities,
• Providing training and information programs on improved farming practices, and
• Providing financing to enable the adoption of energy- or water-efficient practices.

In the fisheries sector:

• Establishing and enforcing marine protected zones,
• Regulating catch methods, such as bottom trawling,
• Establishing quota systems for certain species,
• Investing in sectoral diversification of coastal regions, and
• Improving cold storage and processing to increase catch value and reduce waste.

A range of tools and guides are available to support efforts in reforming harmful subsidies within agriculture and food systems, including:

Tools

Guides

Reforming harmful subsidies within agriculture and food systems can also significantly contribute to advancing the objectives of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Climate change mitigation benefits

Repurposing harmful subsidies in agriculture and food systems provides direct and indirect benefits for climate and biodiversity. This study suggests the following benefits:

• Targeting the removal of the most climate-harmful farm payments, such as output-based, variable input-based, and livestock headage payments, could deliver two-thirds of the climate benefits of eliminating all budgetary support (which could lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2.1%), while cutting only one-fourth of total payments. In particular, livestock headage payments (payments based on the number of head of specific types of livestock), could be repurposed to align them with efforts to reduce methane emissions through measures like improved feed. Thus, overall, this approach would maximize environmental gains while minimizing farm income losses.
• GHG emissions could be reduced by up to 4.1% if farmers receive payments that are not linked to how much they produce, combined with environmentally friendly practices like less ploughing or fewer animals per area, assuming these changes don’t cause farmland to expand.
• Investing in research and development to boost productivity, especially in livestock, could significantly reduce emissions over time at a low cost (under USD 20 per ton of CO₂ equivalent) and save land. Meanwhile, funding programs that help farmers adopt emission-reducing technologies and practices could cut emissions by 5.1% right away for less than USD 50 per ton of CO₂ equivalent.
• Combining the removal of the most climate-harmful payments with environmental actions and targeted investments in productivity and emission-reducing technologies in OECD countries could cut global agricultural emissions by 5%, and by 11% if similar efforts are made in other regions too.

Climate change adaptation benefits

Reforming subsidies to redirect them into green investment in nature-positive practices in agriculture and food systems can directly contribute to the following targets under the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience:

• Target 9a (Water & Sanitation): Redirecting subsidies to invest in climate-resilient water infrastructure and sanitation reduces water scarcity and ensures safe, affordable drinking water. Protecting biodiversity-rich areas enhances natural water filtration, supporting climate adaptation.
• Target 9b (Food & Agriculture): Redirecting subsidies from harmful practices to sustainable farming methods can enhance soil health, water efficiency, and crop diversity, reducing vulnerability to climate shocks. Upgrading systems like irrigation, and storage facilities and processing techniques strengthens food security during extreme weather events. In the fisheries sector, redirecting harmful subsidies would increase fish stock resilience under climate change by increasing fish abundance, diversity, functional integrity, carbon sequestration capacity and decreasing emissions by the fishing sector.
• Target 9d (Ecosystems):  Reducing subsidies that encourage deforestation or overfishing helps preserve ecosystems critical for regulating climate impacts such as wetlands, and forests, the ocean and inland seas. Funding targeted at habitat restoration and connectivity helps species and ecosystems adapt to shifting climatic conditions.
• Target 9e (Infrastructure): Investing in climate-resilient infrastructure and sustainable human settlements as well as ecosystems such as wetlands, mangroves, irrigation systems, storage facilities, and improved processing techniques (e.g., drying, fermenting, hygiene, and sanitary quality), ensures the uninterrupted delivery of essential services, reduces disruptions from extreme weather, and strengthens food security. Combining traditional “grey” infrastructure with nature-based solutions can enhance resilience to challenges like coastal erosion and flooding.
• Target 9f (Livelihoods): Investing in resilient infrastructure, secured access to resources, community-led adaptation solutions guided by local knowledge, access to markets and sustainable human settlements creates livelihood opportunities and protects existing livelihoods, improving communities’ economic resilience to climate-related disruptions.

Biodiversity benefits

Reforming subsidies in agriculture and food systems to align with nature conservation and sustainability goals would advance progress across the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, specifically the following:

• Target 5 (Ensure Sustainable, Safe and Legal Harvesting and Trade of Wild Species): Reforming fisheries subsidies in particular will contribute to decreasing overfishing and lessen global fisheries trade distortions. This will support fish diversity and ocean ecosystem functioning benefitting small-scale actors and their communities.
• Target 9 (Manage Wild Species Sustainably To Benefit People): Reforming and reducing harmful fisheries subsidies can help curb overfishing, directly supporting the sustainable management and use of wild species. This contributes to improved ocean health, biodiversity conservation, and the provision of social, economic, and environmental benefits, particularly for vulnerable populations and those most dependent on biodiversity, while also supporting sustainable biodiversity-based livelihoods and customary practices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
• Target 10 (Enhance Biodiversity and Sustainability in Agriculture, Aquaculture, Fisheries, and Forestry): Reforming subsidies can significantly support sustainable agriculture and food systems by optimizing resource allocation and promoting environmentally friendly practices. In agriculture, repurposing subsidies to focus on sustainable farming and nature-based solutions can enhance biodiversity and reduce environmental impacts, aligning agricultural practices with climate and biodiversity goals. For fisheries, redirecting support away from the most capacity-enhancing types of subsidies (i.e. subsidies encouraging fishing capacity to develop to an extent that effectively results in overfishing), towards sustainable management, research, and enforcement, can improve fish stock health, reduce illegal fishing, and enhance sector resilience.
• Target 14 (Integrate Biodiversity in Decision-Making at Every Level): Reforming subsidies in agriculture and food systems and redirecting public finance towards more sustainable, biodiversity-aligned practices as well as policy integration will facilitate the implementation of Target 14 of the GBF.
• Target 18 (Reduce Harmful Incentives by at Least $500 Billion per Year and Scale Up Positive Incentives for Biodiversity): The policy recommendation fully aligns with this Target, provided the reforms are carried out in a proportionate, just, fair, effective, and equitable way.
• Target 19 (Mobilize $200 Billion per Year for Biodiversity From all Sources, Including $30 Billion Through International Finance): Public subsidy reforms are primarily carried out at the national level and potentially generate the fiscal space for governments to allocate much needed financial resources to nature conservation goals. Furthermore, national reform can build momentum for international cooperation and facilitate the mobilization of international conservation finance. Finally, reforms of public spending can steer macroeconomic dynamics, with the potential of also steering and shaping private sector investments towards collective goals.

Other sustainable development benefits

Reducing or redirecting harmful subsidies away from environmentally harmful activities, accompanied by fiscal policy reforms to encourage sustainable activities in agriculture and food systems, can contribute to progress towards several SDGs:

• SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation): Redirecting subsidies that encourage inefficient water use and overcapacity, e.g. for excessive irrigation, can free up resources to invest in water infrastructure, improve access, and enhance quality.
• SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy): Fiscal policies play a crucial role in promoting renewable energy generation, improving energy efficiency, and raising revenues to expand energy access. For instance, when governments provide financial incentives to encourage the adoption of renewable energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and biogas plants in farm operations, these incentives reduce initial investment barriers for producers, significantly increasing renewable energy uptake in rural and coastal communities.
• SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth): Public spending reforms in agriculture and food systems can be powerful catalysts for innovation, resource efficiency, and employment incentives through targeted policy adjustments and budget reallocations. Transition funding and cooperative planning support workers and producers in adopting new technologies and practices, increasing the sector’s ability to withstand shocks and generating new employment opportunities during the transformation process. For example, in selected sub-Saharan African countries, optimal budget reallocation led to robust efficiency gains, and the creation of tens of thousands of off-farm jobs.
• SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure): Fiscal policies are a critical lever for generating resources to support research and development in green technologies and facilitate infrastructure upgrades, as policymakers often implement targeted subsidies, such as those for renewable energy, clean transport, or waste management, and tax benefits like accelerated depreciation and tariff exemptions, to stimulate sectoral investment in green technology. This approach not only funds research projects but also supports the scaling and commercialization of innovative solutions.
• SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities): Fiscal reforms in agriculture and food systems can generate resources to support social protection and compensate vulnerable groups by integrating social protection measures with agricultural development programs. This can be achieved through cash transfers, livelihood promotion, targeted support for vulnerable populations in agriculture and food systems, and stronger coordination between agricultural and social protection policies.
• SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities): Fiscal policies in agriculture  can improve air quality, waste management, and reduce environmental impacts in cities by addressing pollution sources linked to these sectors, and promoting sustainable practices that have direct and indirect positive effects on urban environments. For example, clean air interventions under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)shows how targeted fiscal support reduces ammonia and methane emissions in agriculture, contributing to improved air quality even in cities affected by farming emissions.
• SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production): Reforming budgetary expenditures in agriculture and food systems, specifically subsidies and tax exemptions, can support more sustainable consumption and production patterns by redirecting financial incentives away from environmentally harmful practices towards those promoting sustainability, efficiency, and healthier outcomes. For fisheries, removing subsidies that incentivize overfishing and resource depletion and redirecting support to sustainable aquaculture or stock management improves resource efficiency and marine ecosystem health.
• SDG 13 (Climate Action): Public spending reforms in agricultural and food systems contribute to reducing carbon emissions and addressing climate change through several key pathways: redirecting subsidies away from emission-intensive practices; supporting sustainable and climate-friendly methods; promoting mitigation and adaptation technologies; encouraging ecosystem services and nature-based solutions; advancing renewable energy and energy efficiency; and enhancing resource efficiency. For example, the expansion of organic agriculture and rural development expenditures under the EU’s CAP has contributed to emissions reductions in member states.
• SDG 14 (Life below Water): Harmful subsidies stimulate overfishing by encouraging fleets to fish beyond sustainable limits and often in sensitive habitats, leading to depletion of fish stocks and degradation of marine ecosystems. Prohibiting certain harmful fisheries subsidies, particularly capacity-enhancing ones such as fuel subsidies, vessel expansion support, and infrastructure incentives, can yield multiple, interconnected benefits for ocean health, climate, biodiversity, food and nutrition security, and the well-being of vulnerable communities.
• SDG 15 (Life on Land): Reforming harmful subsidies in agriculture and food systems can help address land-use change driven by large-scale commodity production. In the tropics, particularly the Amazon rainforest, commercial agriculture and cattle ranching contributed to a 10% increase in primary rainforest loss in 2022, with Brazil accounting for over 40% of global loss, a process that was supported by subsidies. Redirecting these subsidies toward sustainable practices would reduce ecosystem degradation, curb deforestation, and support the achievement of Target 15 by minimizing business impacts on biodiversity and promoting sustainable supply chains.
• SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals): Reforming public spending directly supports SDG Target 17.1, which aims to strengthen domestic resource mobilization, by enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness, and equity of government expenditure.

Subsidy reforms can have unintended consequences if not planned and implemented effectively. The World Bank has identified the following potential trade-offs to subsidy reform:

• Subsidy programs are often shaped by political interests, with powerful groups exerting outsized influence over policy decisions, public messaging, and resistance to reform. To improve transparency and accountability, tools such as participatory fiscal tracking and beneficiary mapping can be used to reveal where subsidies actually flow and who benefits, helping to counteract policy capture and build public support for reform.
• When subsidies are large and prop up entire sectors of the economy, removing them is bound to cause structural issues, induce sectoral shifts in the economy, and lead to job losses. Knock-on effects can affect firms along supply chain networks or force migration decisions in affected communities.
• Inflationary impacts and the associated affordability challenges of subsidy reforms can be significant, albeit usually temporary.
• Subsidy removal can reduce competitiveness and cause firm and worker exits, especially in industries and sectors that were artificially propped up by subsidies.
• Removing subsidies may also force people and firms to shift to less expensive, but inferior goods.
• Reforms risk inflicting significant hardship on poor and vulnerable groups, who might depend heavily on subsidies, even when these subsidies are highly regressive.
• Repurposing all harmful fishery subsidies without due application of special and differential treatment to small-scale, artisanal fishers may cause major harm to their communities.

Subsidy reforms in agriculture and food systems must be designed and implemented in a way that protects vulnerable communities including farmers, fishers and agricultural producers while contributing to national climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development goals. The following measures can be part of a suite of tools to manage and reduce any unintended impacts of subsidy reforms:

• Implement gradual reforms to help manage inflationary pressures and allow time for economic adjustments, reducing shocks to vulnerable sectors.
• Strengthen and expand social protection systems to mitigate the impacts on vulnerable groups, such as cash transfers or subsidies targeted specifically at low-income households.
• Provide temporary and well-targeted compensation to those disproportionately affected by reforms, ensuring that assistance does not delay necessary changes.
• Assess the food environment to align subsidies and incentives with health and environmental outcomes: Assess which subsidies contribute to unhealthy eating patterns or environmental harm, such as those promoting overconsumption of processed foods or supporting ecologically damaging monocultures like sugar or tobacco. Explore the potential for redirecting subsidies toward incentives that encourage healthier and more sustainable and just diets. Consider complementary measures such as targeted taxes on harmful products.
• Support affected industries and regions by promoting diversification and providing incentives for innovation and competitiveness.
• Involve diverse groups, including industries, NGOs, and local communities, in the planning and implementation of reforms to build consensus and reduce opposition.
• Coordinate across government agencies to ensure coherent policies that align with broader economic and environmental objectives.
• Redirect savings from subsidy reductions toward public goods like education, health care, and infrastructure to enhance social welfare.
• In the fisheries sector, repurposing subsidies with a long-term perspective of strengthening socio-economic resilience of the sector without incentivizing increased fishing capacity is of importance to safeguarding and rebuild remaining global fish stocks that vulnerable communities depend on.

Assessing the progress of reforms aimed at harmful subsidies in agriculture and food systems requires comprehensive monitoring approaches, clearly defined indicators, and cohesive evaluation frameworks that capture both implementation effectiveness and related biodiversity and climate outcomes.

Indicators to monitor biodiversity outcomes

The Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to a comprehensive set of headline, component, and complementary indicators for tracking progress toward the targets of the KM-GBF. Some of these indicators could also be functional for monitoring the implementation of this policy option. These indicators are:

Tools to monitor biodiversity outcomes

Not identified

Tools to monitor climate outcomes

Not identified.

Not identified.

Some notable examples of interventions related to reforming harmful subsidies in agriculture and food systems at the global level include:

• Austria is conducting annual reviews to enhance the efficiency of its green spending, with a 2022 baseline review revealing that 11.4% of expenditures and 11.5% of revenues align with the country’s climate, energy, and environmental goals, as defined by its green public finance taxonomy. This aligns with Austria’s National Development Strategy, and by 2025, four additional reviews will focus on subnational linkages, EU alignment, public sector actions, and green procurement. To classify the impact of financial flows on environmental objectives, Austria is developing a six-step Green Budgeting Scorecard.
• Denmark has developed GreenREFORM, an analytical tool that allows for an assessment of the environmental and climate effects of economic policies from 2015 to 2100. GreenREFORM is a computable general equilibrium model, which simulates the environmental effects of Danish economic activity and the economic effects of policy interventions. This allows for more rigorous ex ante evaluations of different climate policy options with a view to informing the policy target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70% in 2030.
• Ireland has been implementing a wide range of green budgeting tools, including carbon budgets, environmental impact assessments, and green tagging.
• The WTO Agreement on fisheries subsidies which was adopted in 2022 prohibits subsidies in situations when they are most damaging (Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported fishing, overfished stocks, unregulated high seas). Upon entry into force in September 2025, it is helping WTO Member States who signed the agreement in aligning government subsidy policies with sustainability goals in the sector.
• In the mid-1980s, New Zealand removed nearly all agricultural production subsidies, including price support for wool, beef, sheep meat, and dairy products. This shift reduced incentives for environmentally harmful intensification and encouraged more sustainable land use practices, resulting in positive impacts on biodiversity. The use of fertilizers and pesticides were reduced, decreasing pollution levels in rivers, reducing the farming of marginal land, and halting land clearance and overstocking, which had been major causes of high levels of soil erosion.
• Kyrgyzstan assessed agricultural subsidies and tax exemptions to identify those most harmful to biodiversity. The analysis found that the VAT exemption on imports of pesticides and chemical fertilizers and subsidized water tariffs had the greatest negative impacts, despite their relatively low fiscal cost. The exemption from personal income tax on agricultural sales cost $76 million annually but had limited biodiversity impact, while water tariffs ($14.7 million) and VAT exemptions ($5 million) caused serious ecosystem harm. Rather than targeting only the largest subsidies by cost, this approach focused on removing or redesigning those causing the most biodiversity loss per unit of spending, giving policymakers a clear path to protect ecosystems while minimizing economic disruption to producers.
• Nepal identified 12 agricultural subsidies potentially harmful to biodiversity and applied a prioritization methodology using 11 criteria covering biodiversity, financial and social impacts, agricultural intensification, and feasibility of redesign. Experts scored each subsidy, leading to a shortlist of five based on likely biodiversity impact, financial value, and social effects. Stakeholder consultations narrowed this to three for deeper analysis. One of these, the Agriculture Credit Interest Subsidy, was examined using an exploratory approach due to limited data, lack of scientific evidence, and challenges in linking impacts. Introduced in 2016, it was assessed by comparing pre- and post-implementation conditions. Financial analysis showed rising costs, minimal progress toward its goal of reducing the trade deficit, and significant unintended harm to biodiversity and soils. This case illustrates an intervention in practice: using systematic criteria, expert and stakeholder engagement, and in-depth review to identify and reform subsidies that are both ineffective and environmentally damaging.

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