The fourteenth joint edition of the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook provides market projections for major agricultural commodities, biofuels and fish, as well as a special feature on the prospects and challenges of agriculture and fisheries in the Middle East and North Africa.

The book is composed of a series of case studies. The countries included reflect the interest and experience of the authors who collaborated in preparing the volume. No attempt was made to provide representative coverage based upon a comprehensive classiftcation of countries, which is why there are no chapters dealing with such exporters as Argentina or Thailand or importers such as Egypt or Japan. Despite the somewhat eclectic geographical mix, many of the fundamental issues that face the North and the South, both individually and collectively, are illustrated by the case countries. We would argue that there is much to be learned about the effective implementation of policy choices and the constraints that policymakers face by looking at individual country experiences, rather than by attempting to generalize on the basis of an abstract theoretical framework There is a dearth of information on what countries actually do in managing domestic grain markets.