Agricultural Producer Support Policy in Iran and Selected Countries

Agricultural policies in Iran have aimed at achieving self-sufficiency in food productions through the government various policies. The aim of this paper is to examine the current level of protection which may exist in agricultural sector in Iran and other countries. The results indicate that the PSE in Iran is much higher than the OECD and is close to Japanese and Korean PSE percentage (i.e. 58 and 64 percent). The broadest indicator of support representing the sum of transfers to agricultural producers (PSE), expenditure for general services (GSSE), and direct budgetary transfers to consumers, reached 83 billion Dollars per year in 2001-2005 which is almost equivalent to 13.4 percent of Iran’s GDP in this period. This is much higher than the OECD average and suggests a relatively high burden of agricultural support on Iran’s economy.