This study of OECD takes an in-depth look at the landscape of agro-food GVCs and explores the factors that influence GVC participation by making use of a newly developed database on trade in value added for 20 agro-food sectors derived from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database. The study points to considerable variation in GVC participation across agro-food sectors, driven by i)product characteristics; ii)policy factors related to trade and investment. The study also shows that for agro-food sectors, trade barriers act as a tax on exports, reducing the domestic value added created from participation in agro-food GVCs.