study of economic development and support for soybean growers in selected countries

Given the close link between agriculture with other economic sectors, agricultural development can play an important role in the economic prosperity of countries. Protection policies are the most important economic strategies in the agricultural sector in the developing and developed countries. Bearing in mind the central role of agriculture in development of countries, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the percentage of support to producers (% PSE) and the indicators of development, including rates of production, value of production, imports and value of imported soybeans, soybean export volume and export value in order to provide a classification and cluster analysis, and to show the distance based on the these indicators between different countries. The statistical population in this study was the countries that were members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and those countries classified by FAO as the main soybean producing countries. Using cluster analysis based on proximity of the indicators the countries were grouped. The results showed that countries that had high soybean production such as America, Brazil and Argentina their income based on pro international dollars were higher where as producer support was not that high in these countries and were accordingly grouped in weak support category. In contrast, in countries such as South Korea and Japan with lower production, government support was higher and more efficient, this means that a greater percentage of the annual monetary value of gross transfers from government support to producers of soybean.