How comparable are cross-country data on agricultural public expenditures?

Sound cross-country data on agricultural public expenditures are key for determining public resource needs to support food security in the developing world. This article reviews all international initiatives that produce such data, and analyses the scope and methodologies underlying these data. We find that while, combined, all 13 data initiatives cover a rich spectrum, there remains an absence of crucial datasets such as on extension and on agricultural subsidies. Although there are several points of interaction between the data initiatives, significant (in some cases staggering) differences across datasets exist on seemingly the same variables, countries, and years. There is thus scope for greater collaboration across the data initiatives to develop shared standards in cross-country compilation of agricultural expenditure data.