Environmental performance of agriculture at a glance [electronic resource].

In OECD countries, agriculture uses on average over 40% of land and water resources, and thus has significant affect on the environment. This report provides the latest and most comprehensive data and analysis on the environmental performance of agriculture in OECD countries since 1990. It covers key environmental themes including soil, water, air and biodiversity and looks at recent policy developments in all 30 countries.--Publisher's description.

Most OECD countries are tracking the environmental performance of agriculture, which is informing policy makers and society on the state and trends in agri-environmental conditions, and can provide a valuable aid to policy analysis. As countries are increasingly using a wide range of policy measures to address agri-environmental issues, indicators provide crucial information to monitor and analyse the effects of those policies on the environment. They can also help the understanding and analysis of the environmental effects of future policy scenarios and agricultural projections.

This work is unique in many ways. The co-operative process in preparing the indicators ensured that as far as possible they are the most up to date and readily available comparative data on the environmental performance of agriculture in OECD countries. The report includes both those indicators that most closely satisfy the criteria of policy relevance, analytical soundness, measurability and ease of interpretation -- in other words those that are most comparable across time and countries -- and those that are less developed or of importance to only a few countries or group of countries. This publication also provides valuable agri-environmental information for each OECD country."--P. [4] of cover.