Agriculture and agricultural policy in Eastern European Neighbourhood

The paper presents the agriculture and agricultural policies of eight countries emerging from the former Soviet Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. These countries hold a great agricultural production potential; nevertheless, some of them are still relatively unanalysed from the point of view of agricultural policy. One of the aims was to find out whether and how policies are converging, considering recent geopolitical developments. Policy analysis was conducted qualitatively (document analysis and literature review) and quantitatively by applying the OECD PSE approach to analyse sector policy support. The quantitative analysis of the agri-food sector was based on the data collected in the framework of the AGRICISTRADE project. The key issues in the region are food security and competitiveness; policy approaches range from strong interventionism to almost complete liberalisation. Budgetary support is relatively low compared to averages for EU and OECD countries. Transfers to producers dominate in all countries, especially input subsidies and on-farm investment support, whereas the support to rural development and for general services is weak. While the prices for crops are near world prices, prices for animal products are fairly high in some countries, indicating high developmental needs. Based on the results of the analysis, it is possible to discern four rough political/economic clusters of countries: Transcaucasia countries, Russia and Kazakhstan,Ukraine and Moldova and Belarus