This study proposes a set of indicators for monitoring and evaluation of agricultural
policy, patterned after the support estimates of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). The main indicators are: producer support (incorporating indirect market
support, and direct input support through irrigation, credit, and land transfer); general services
support; and public expenditures for agriculture. The study finds that these indicators are viable
measures of public support and may be consistently updated over time. Past trends in policy
indicators suggest that price policy played the biggest role in agricultural support. Low to
negative support to agriculture up to the late 1980s was due largely to indirect taxation of
agriculture. From the 1990s onward though the protection structure swung in favor of agriculture
resulting in expanding producer support, further enhanced by increasing budgetary outlays for
agriculture, mostly towards provision of private goods (such as fertilizer subsidies). These
patterns suggest resource misallocation, which may be remedied by rationalizing price policy as
well as budgetary allocation from agricultural support services of DA (and land acquisition by
DAR), towards provision of public goods such as R&D, extension, regulation, and participatory
irrigation investments.