21/06/2017 (Agence Europe) – According to the OECD’s Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation report for 2017, presented on Wednesday 21 June, support measures represented on average 39% of the sector’s added value in the organisation’s 35 member states over the period from 2014 to 2016, with the EU and the United States around that figure. The report recommends that direct payments be better targeted towards those recipients who need them most and, more generally, that support to the producer be shifted towards the provision of general services (infrastructure, training, innovation and customised checks). This, it says, could pave the way to transition of the sector far from the forms of support that distort production and trade. (LC)