Clearly, agriculture and a number of other sectors are going to require a major effort. This effort must be made so that the global economy can benefit. It won’t be easy, but in the long run, it will be worth it. The second principle in the OECD policy consensus has to do with structural reform.
There are two goals here: one, to increase the flexibility of our economies in order to adjust to changing world economic conditions; and two, to ensure the longer-run viability of our social- and income-security arrangements. These adjustments are always difficult, because reforms will affect various groups in different, and often painful, ways.