ATTAC-WTO WTO Reviews Uruguay Round Ag Trade Agreement

The present rules and commitments on agriculture are often called the “Uruguay Round reform programme” — they were negotiated in the Uruguay Round and they include reductions in subsidies and protection as well as other disciplines on the trade.

While the volume of world agricultural exports has substantially increased over recent decades, its rate of growth has lagged behind that of manufactures, resulting in a steady decline in agriculture’s share in world merchandise trade. In 1998, agricultural trade accounted for 10.5 per cent of total merchandise trade — when trade in services is taken into account, agriculture’s share in global exports drops to 8.5 per cent. However, with respect to world trade agriculture is still ahead of sectors such as mining products, automotive products, chemicals, textiles and clothing or iron and steel. Among the agricultural goods traded internationally, food products make up almost 80 per cent of the total. The other main category of agricultural products is raw materials. Since the mid-1980s, trade in processed and other high value agricultural products has been expanding much faster than trade in the basic primary products such as cereals.

Agricultural trade remains in many countries an important part of overall economic activity and continues to play a major role in domestic agricultural production and employment. The trading system plays also a fundamentally important role in global food security, for example by ensuring that temporary or protracted food deficits arising from adverse climatic and other conditions can be met from world markets.

Although agriculture has always been covered by the GATT, prior to the WTO there were several important differences with respect to the rules that applied to agricultural primary products as opposed to industrial products. The GATT 1947 allowed countries to use export subsidies on agricultural primary products whereas export subsidies on industrial products were prohibited. The only conditions were that agricultural export subsidies should not be used to capture more than an “equitable share” of world exports of the product concerned (Article XVI:3 of GATT). The GATT rules also allowed countries to resort to import restrictions (e.g. import quotas) under certain conditions, notably when these restrictions were necessary to enforce measures to effectively limit domestic production (Article XI:2(c) of GATT). This exception was also conditional on the maintenance of a minimum proportion of imports relative to domestic production.

However, in practice many non-tariff border restrictions were applied to imports without any effective counterpart limitations on domestic production and without maintaining minimum import access. In some cases this was achieved through the use of measures not specifically provided for under Article XI. In other cases it reflected exceptions and country-specific derogations such as grandfather clauses, waivers and protocols of accession. In still other cases non-tariff import restrictions were maintained without any apparent justification.

The result of all this was a proliferation of impediments to agricultural trade, including by means of import bans, quotas setting the maximum level of imports, variable import levies, minimum import prices and non-tariff measures maintained by state trading enterprises. Major agricultural products such as cereals, meat, dairy products, sugar and a range of fruits and vegetables have faced barriers to trade on a scale uncommon in other merchandise sectors.

In part, this insulation of domestic markets was the result of measures originally introduced following the collapse of commodity prices in the 1930s Depression. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the Second World War many governments were concerned primarily with increasing domestic agricultural production so as to feed their growing populations. With this objective in mind and in order to maintain a certain balance between the development of rural and urban incomes, many countries, particularly in the developed world, resorted to market price support — farm prices were administratively raised. Import access barriers ensured that domestic production could continue to be sold. In response to these measures and as a result of productivity gains, self-sufficiency rates rapidly increased. In a number of cases, expanding domestic production of certain agricultural products not only replaced imports completely but resulted in structural surpluses. Export subsidies were increasingly used to dump surpluses onto the world market, thus depressing world market prices. On the other hand, this factor, plus the effects of overvalued exchange rates, low food price policies in favour of urban consumers and certain other domestic measures, reduced in a number of developing countries the incentive for farmers to increase or even maintain their agricultural production levels.

In the lead-up to the Uruguay Round negotiations, it became increasingly evident that the causes of disarray in world agriculture went beyond import access problems which had been the traditional focus of GATT negotiations. To get to the roots of the problems, disciplines with regard to all measures affecting trade in agriculture, including domestic agricultural policies and the subsidization of agricultural exports, were considered to be essential. Clearer rules for sanitary and phytosanitary measures were also considered to be required, both in their own right and to prevent circumvention of stricter rules on import access through unjustified, protectionist use of food safety as well as animal and plant health measures.

The agricultural negotiations in the Uruguay Round were by no means easy — the broad scope of the negotiations and their political sensitivity necessarily required much time in order to reach an agreement on the new rules, and much technical work was required in order to establish sound means to formalise commitments in policy areas beyond the scope of prior GATT practice. The Agreement on Agriculture and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures were negotiated in parallel, and a Decision on Measures Concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on Least-developed and Net Food-importing Developing Countries also formed part of the overall outcome.

The Agreement on Agriculture, (the “Agreement”), came into force on 1 January 1995. The preamble to the Agreement recognizes that the agreed long-term objective of the reform process initiated by the Uruguay Round reform programme is to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system. The reform programme comprises specific commitments to reduce support and protection in the areas of domestic support, export subsidies and market access, and through the establishment of strengthened and more operationally effective GATT rules and disciplines. The Agreement also takes into account non-trade concerns, including food security and the need to protect the environment, and provides special and differential treatment for developing countries, including an improvement in the opportunities and terms of access for agricultural products of particular export interest to these Members.

In principle, all WTO agreements and understandings on trade in goods apply to agriculture, including the GATT 1994 and WTO agreements on such matters as customs valuation, import licensing procedures, pre-shipment inspection, emergency safeguard measures, subsidies and technical barriers to trade. However, where there is any conflict between these agreements and the Agreement on Agriculture, the provisions of the Agreement on Agriculture prevail. The WTO Agreements on Trade in Services and on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property rights are also applicable to agriculture.

The Agreement defines in its Annex 1 agricultural products by reference to the harmonised system of product classification — the definition covers not only basic agricultural products such as wheat, milk and live animals, but the products derived from them such as bread, butter and meat, as well as all processed agricultural products such as chocolate and sausages. The coverage also includes wines, spirits and tobacco products, fibres such as cotton, wool and silk, and raw animal skins destined for leather production. Fish and fish products are not included, nor are forestry products.

The Agreement on Agriculture establishes a number of generally applicable rules with regard to trade-related agricultural measures, primarily in the areas of market access, domestic support and export competition. These rules relate to country-specific commitments to improve market access and reduce trade-distorting subsidies which are contained in the individual country schedules of the WTO Members and constitute an integral part of the GATT.

The implementation period for the country-specific commitments is the six-year period commencing in 1995. However, developing countries have the flexibility to implement their reduction and other specific commitments over a period of up to 10 years. Members had the choice of implementing their concessions and commitments on the basis of calendar, marketing (crop) or fiscal years. A WTO Member’s implementation year for tariff reductions may thus differ from the one applied to export subsidy reductions. For the purpose of the peace clause, the implementation period is the nine-year period commencing in 1995.

The Agreement established a Committee on Agriculture. The Committee oversees the implementation of the Agreement on Agriculture and affords Members the opportunity of consulting on any matter relating to the implementation of commitments, including rule-based commitments. For this purpose, the Committee usually meets four times per year. Special meetings can be convened if necessary.

Under the reform programme, members have converted their non-tariff measures to equivalent bound tariffs. Some additional market access is provided through tariff rate quotas, and the tariffs are being reduced. Contingency protection is provided through special safeguards, and transparency works through notifications.

On the market access side, the Uruguay Round resulted in a key systemic change: the switch from a situation where a myriad of non-tariff measures impeded agricultural trade flows to a regime of bound tariff-only protection plus reduction commitments. The key aspects of this fundamental change have been to stimulate investment, production and trade in agriculture by (i) making agricultural market access conditions more transparent, predictable and competitive, (ii) establishing or strengthening the link between national and international agricultural markets, and thus (iii) relying more prominently on the market for guiding scarce resources into their most productive uses both within the agricultural sector and economy-wide.

In many cases, tariffs were the only form of protection for agricultural products before the Uruguay Round — the Round led to the “binding” in the WTO of a maximum level for these tariffs. For many other products, however, market access restrictions involved non-tariff barriers. This was frequently, though not only, the case for major temperate zone agricultural products. The Uruguay Round negotiations aimed to remove such barriers. For this purpose, a “tariffication” package was agreed which, amongst other things, provided for the replacement of agriculture-specific non-tariff measures with a tariff which afforded an equivalent level of protection. The tariffs resulting from the tariffication process account, on average of the developed country Members, for around one fifth of the total number of agricultural tariff lines. For the developing country Members, this share is considerably smaller. Following the entry into force of the Agreement on Agriculture, there is now a prohibition on agriculture-specific non-tariff measures, and the tariffs on virtually all agricultural products traded internationally are bound in the WTO.

Each WTO Member has a “schedule” of tariff concessions covering all agricultural products. These concessions are an integral part of the results of the Uruguay Round, are formally annexed to the Marrakesh Protocol [cross-reference] and have become an integral part of the GATT 1994 [cross-reference]. The schedule sets out for each individual agricultural product, or, in some cases agricultural products defined more generally, the maximum tariff that can be applied on imports into the territory of the Member concerned. The tariffs in the schedules include those that resulted from the tariffication process, which, in many cases, are considerably higher than industrial tariffs, reflecting the incidence of agriculture-specific non-tariff measures prior to the WTO. Many developing countries have bound their previously unbound tariffs at “ceiling” levels, i.e. at levels higher than the applied rates prior to the WTO.

Developed country Members have agreed to reduce, over a six-year period beginning in 1995, their tariffs by 36 per cent on average of all agricultural products, with a minimum cut of 15 per cent for any product. For developing countries, the cuts are 24 and 10 per cent, respectively, to be implemented over ten years. Those developing country Members which bound tariffs at ceiling levels did not, in many cases, undertake reduction commitments. Least-developed country Members were required to bind all agricultural tariffs, but not to undertake tariff reductions.

As part of the tariffication package, WTO Members were required to maintain, for tariffied products, current import access opportunities at levels corresponding to those existing during the 1986-88 base period. Where such “current” access had been less than 5 per cent of domestic consumption of the product in question in the base period, an (additional) minimum access opportunity had to be opened on a most-favoured-nation basis. This was to ensure that in 1995, current and minimum access opportunities combined represented at least 3 per cent of base-period consumption and are progressively expanded to reach 5 per cent of that consumption in the year 2000 (developed country Members) or 2004 (developing country Members), respectively.

The current and minimum access opportunities are generally implemented in the form of tariff quotas. In case of minimum access, the applicable duty was required to be low or minimal, low that is either in absolute terms or, at least, in relation to the “normal” ordinary customs duty that applies to any imports outside the tariff quota. These tariff quotas, including the applicable tariff rates and any other conditions related to the tariff quotas, are specified in the schedules of the WTO Members concerned.

While the vast majority of tariff quotas in agriculture have their origin in the Uruguay Round negotiations, a number of such commitments were the result of accessions to the WTO. Currently (July 1999), 37 Members have tariff quotas specified in their schedules. In total, there are 1374 individual tariff quotas. These tariff quotas constitute binding commitments as opposed to autonomous tariff quotas which Members may establish at any time, for example, in order to stabilize the domestic price after a poor harvest.

Article 4.2 of the Agreement on Agriculture prohibits the use of agriculture-specific non-tariff measures. Such measures include quantitative import restrictions, variable import levies, minimum import prices, discretionary import licensing procedures, voluntary export restraint agreements and non-tariff measures maintained through state-trading enterprises. All similar border measures other than “normal customs duties” are also no longer permitted. Although Article XI:2(c) of the GATT [cross-reference] continues to permit non-tariff import restrictions on fisheries products, it is now inoperative as regards agricultural products because it is superseded by the Agreement on Agriculture.

However, Article 4.2 of the Agreement on Agriculture does not prevent the use of non-tariff import restrictions consistent with the provisions of the GATT or other WTO agreements which are applicable to traded goods generally (industrial or agricultural). Such measures include those maintained under balance-of-payments provisions (Articles XII and XVIII of GATT), general safeguard provisions (Article XIX of GATT and the related WTO agreement), general exceptions (Article XX of GATT), the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade or other general, non-agriculture-specific WTO provisions.

The Agreement on Agriculture contains a “special treatment” clause (Annex 5), under which four countries were permitted, subject to strictly circumscribed conditions, to maintain non-tariff border measures on certain products during the period of tariff reductions (with the possibility of extending the special treatment, subject to further negotiations). As one of the conditions, market access in the form of progressively increasing import quotas has to be provided for the products concerned. The products and countries concerned are: rice in the case of Japan, Korea and the Philippines; and cheese and sheepmeat in the case of Israel. As of 1 April 1999, Japan has ceased to apply special treatment.

As a third element of the tariffication package, Members have the right to invoke for tariffied products the special safeguard provisions of the Agreement on Agriculture (Article 5), provided that a reservation to this effect (“SSG”) appears beside the products concerned in the relevant Member’s schedule. The right to make use of the special safeguard provisions has been reserved by 38 Members, and for a limited number of products in each case.

The special safeguard provisions allow the imposition of an additional tariff where certain criteria are met. The criteria involve either a specified surge in imports (volume trigger), or, on a shipment by shipment basis, a fall of the import price below a specified reference price (price trigger). In case of the volume trigger, the higher duties only apply until the end of the year in question. In case of the price trigger, any additional duty can only be imposed on the shipment concerned. The additional duties cannot be applied to imports taking place within tariff quotas.

The bound agricultural tariffs and the tariff quota commitments are contained in Members’ schedules. There is no requirement for Members to notify their tariffs to the Committee on Agriculture. Applied tariffs are, however, to be submitted to other bodies of the WTO, including the Committee on Market Access and in the context of the Trade Policy Review mechanism.

Members with tariff quotas and the right to use the special safeguard provisions are required to make both ad hoc and annual notifications to the Committee on Agriculture. At the beginning of the implementation period, an “up-front” notification was due, setting out how each tariff quota is to be administered. Such notifications disclose, for example, if imports are permitted on a “first-come-first-served” basis or if import licences are used — and in the latter case, an indication of who is able to obtain a licence and how they are allocated. An ad hoc notification is required if the method of allocation under any tariff quota changes. At the end of each year, a notification of the quantity of imports entering under each tariff quota is required (tariff quota fill).

Members with the right to use the special safeguard provisions must notify its first use in order to allow its trading partners to establish the parameters of the special safeguard action, such as the volume or price used to trigger the special safeguard action. In the case of the price trigger, an upfront notification of the relevant reference prices has also been possible. In addition, an annual summary notification of the use of the special safeguard is required.

The agricultural package of the Uruguay Round has fundamentally changed the way domestic support in favour of agricultural producers was treated under the GATT 1947. A key objective has been to discipline and reduce domestic support while at the same time leaving great scope for governments to design domestic agricultural policies in the face of, and in response to, the wide variety of the specific circumstances in individual countries and individual agricultural sectors. The approach agreed upon is also aimed at helping ensure that the specific binding commitments in the areas of market access and export competition are not undermined through domestic support measures.

The main conceptual consideration is that there are basically two categories of domestic support — support with no, or minimal, distortive effect on trade on the one hand (often referred to as “Green Box” measures) and trade-distorting support on the other hand (often referred to as “Amber Box” measures). For example, government provided agricultural research or training is considered to be of the former type, while government buying-in at a guaranteed price (“market price support”) falls into the latter category. Under the Agreement on Agriculture, all domestic support in favour of agricultural producers is subject to rules. In addition, the aggregate monetary value of Amber Box measures is, with certain exceptions, subject to reduction commitments as specified in the schedule of each WTO Member providing such support.

The Agreement on Agriculture sets out a number of general and measure-specific criteria which, when met, allow measures to be placed in the Green Box (Annex 2). These measures are exempt from reduction commitments and, indeed, can even be increased without any financial limitation under the WTO. The Green Box applies to both developed and developing country Members but in the case of developing countries special treatment is provided in respect of governmental stockholding programmes for food security purposes and subsidized food prices for urban and rural poor. The general criteria are that the measures must have no, or at most minimal, trade-distorting effects or effects on production. They must be provided through a publicly-funded government programme (including government revenue foregone) not involving transfers from consumers and must not have the effect of providing price support to producers.

The Green Box covers many government service programmes including general services provided by governments, public stockholding programmes for food security purposes and domestic food aid -as long as the general criteria and some other measure-specific criteria are met by each measure concerned. The Green Box thus provides for the continuation (and enhancement) of programmes such as research, including general research, research in connection with environmental programmes, and research programmes relating to particular products; pest and disease control programmes, including general and product-specific pest and disease control measures; agricultural training services and extension and advisory services; inspection services, including general inspection services and the inspection of particular products for health, safety, grading or standardization purposes; marketing and promotion services; infrastructural services, including electricity reticulation, roads and other means of transport, market and port facilities, water supply facilities, etc; expenditures in relation to the accumulation and holding of public stocks for food security purposes; and expenditures in relation to the provision of domestic food aid to sections of the population in need. Many of the regular programmes of governments are thus given the “green light” to continue.

The Green Box also provides for the use of direct payments to producers which are not linked to production decisions, i.e. although the farmer receives a payment from the government, this payment does not influence the type or volume of agricultural production (“decoupling”). The conditions preclude any linkage between the amount of such payments, on the one hand, and production, prices or factors of production in any year after a fixed base period. In addition, no production shall be required in order to receive such payments. Additional criteria to be met depend on the type of measure concerned which may include: decoupled income support measures; income insurance and safety-net programmes; natural disaster relief; a range of structural adjustment assistance programmes; and certain payments under environmental programmes and under regional assistance programmes.

In addition to measures covered by the Green Box, two other categories of domestic support measures are exempt from reduction commitments under the Agreement on Agriculture (Article 6). These are certain developmental measures in developing countries and certain direct payments under production-limiting programmes. Furthermore, so-called de minimis levels of support are exempted from reduction.

The special and differential treatment under the Green Box aside, the type of support that fits into the developmental category are measures of assistance, whether direct or indirect, designed to encourage agricultural and rural development and that are an integral part of the development programmes of developing countries. They include investment subsidies which are generally available to agriculture in developing country Members, agricultural input subsidies generally available to low-income or resource-poor producers in developing country Members, and domestic support to producers in developing country Members to encourage diversification from growing illicit narcotic crops.

Direct payments under production limiting programmes (often referred to as “Blue Box” measures) are exempt from commitments if such payments are made on fixed areas and yield or a fixed number of livestock. Such payments also fit into this category if they are made on 85 per cent or less of production in a defined base period. While the Green Box covers decoupled payments, in the case of the Blue Box measures, production is still required in order to receive the payments, but the actual payments do not relate directly to the current quantity of that production.

All domestic support measures in favour of agricultural producers that do not fit into any of the above exempt categories are subject to reduction commitments. This domestic support category captures policies, such as market price support measures, direct production subsidies or input subsidies. However, under the de minimis provisions of the Agreement there is no requirement to reduce such trade-distorting domestic support in any year in which the aggregate value of the product-specific support does not exceed 5 per cent of the total value of production of the agricultural product in question. In addition, non-product specific support which is less than 5 per cent of the value of total agricultural production is also exempt from reduction. The 5 per cent threshold applies to developed countries whereas in the case of developing countries the de minimis ceiling is 10 per cent.

Twenty-eight Members (counting the EC as one) had non-exempt domestic support during the base period and hence reduction commitments specified in their schedules. The reduction commitments are expressed in terms of a “Total Aggregate Measurement of Support” (Total AMS) which includes all product-specific support and non-product-specific support in one single figure. Members with a Total AMS have to reduce base period support by 20 per cent over 6 years (developed country Members) or 13 per cent over 10 years (developing country Members). In any year of the implementation period, the Current Total AMS value of non-exempt measures must not exceed the scheduled Total AMS limit as specified in the schedule for that year. In other words, the maximum levels of such support are bound in the WTO.

In the case of Members with no scheduled reduction commitments, any domestic support not covered by one or another of the exception categories outlined above, must be maintained within the relevant “product-specific” and “non-product-specific” de minimis levels.

Price support measures have been the most important type of policy measure within the non-exempt category. Price support can be provided either through administered prices (involving transfers from consumers) or through certain types of direct payments from governments. For the purpose of Current Total AMS calculations, price support is generally measured by multiplying the gap between the applied administered price and a specified fixed external reference price (“world market price”) by the quantity of production eligible to receive the administered price. Calculation details are specified in Annexes 3 and 4 of the Agreement on Agriculture and also incorporated into Members’ schedules by way of references to Supporting Material. For each product, the implicit subsidy of price support measures is added to other product-specific subsidies — a product-specific fertiliser subsidy, for example — to arrive at a product-specific AMS which is then evaluated against the applicable de minimis threshold. Non-product-specific subsidies are calculated separately and, as in the former case, are included in the Current Total AMS only if they exceed the relevant de minimis level. The example in the box illustrates the calculation of the Current Total AMS for a developed country (5 per cent de minimis threshold) in year Y.

Example: Calculation of the current total AMS
Member X (developed country), year Y
Wheat:
> Intervention price for wheat = $255 per tonne
> Fixed external reference price (world market price) = $110 per tonne
> Domestic production of wheat = 2,000,000 tonnes
> Value of wheat production = $510,000,000
> Wheat AMS (AMS 1) ($255–$110) x 2,000,000 tonnes = $290,000,000 (de minimis level=$25,500,000)

Barley
> Deficiency payments for barley = $3,000,000
> Value of barley production = $100,000,000
> Barley AMS (AMS 2) = $3,000,000 (de minimis level=$5,000,000)

Oilseeds:
> Deficiency payments for oilseeds = $13,000,000
> Fertilizer subsidy = $1,000,000
> Value of oilseeds production = $250,000,000
> Oilseeds AMS (AMS 3) = $14,000,000 (de minimis level=$12,500,000)

Support not specific to products
> Generally available interest rate subsidy = $ 4,000,000
Value of total agricultural production = $860,000,000
> Non-product-specific AMS (AMS 4) = $4,000,000 de minimis level=$43,000,000

Current total AMS (AMS 1 + AMS 3) = $304,000,000

Where it is not practicable to calculate a product-specific AMS as set out in the Agreement, provisions are made of an “Equivalent Measurement of Support” (EMS). The EMS is generally calculated on the basis of budgetary outlays — the money spent by governments to support a product, for example, rather than market price support calculated with respect to a fixed external reference price.

All Members must notify the Committee on Agriculture the extent of their domestic support measures. This requires a listing of all measures that fit into the exempt categories: the Green Box, developmental measures, direct payments under production limiting programmes (Blue Box) and de minimis levels of support. In addition, where the existence of measures requires it, AMS calculations must be undertaken by Members that have scheduled domestic support reduction commitments and the Current Total AMS must be notified. Where a Member without such scheduled commitments has support measures which are not covered by one or other of the exempt categories, a notification must be made showing that such non-exempt support is within the relevant de minimis levels. Special formats have been developed by the Committee on Agriculture in order to facilitate compliance with the notification obligations.

The requirement to notify is annual, except in the case of least-developed country Members which are only required to notify every other year. Developing country Members can also request the Committee to set aside the annual notification requirement for measures other than those falling into the Green Box or the developmental or Blue Box categories.

In addition to the annual notification obligations, all Members must notify any modifications of existing or any introduction of new measures in the exempt categories. These notifications too are examined by the Committee on Agriculture on a regular basis.

As most Members do not have domestic support measures other than those falling into the exempt categories, the annual notification requirements are in many cases not particularly burdensome. However, they are effective in providing a basis for policy discussions within the Committee on Agriculture and they also serve a useful purpose domestically in enabling governments to maintain an annual overview of support to their agricultural sectors.

The core of the reform programme on export subsidies are the commitments to reduce subsidized export quantities, and the amount of money spent subsidizing exports. The Agriculture Agreement also looks at anti-circumvention questions.

The proliferation of export subsidies in the years leading to the Uruguay Round was one of the key issues that were addressed in the agricultural negotiations. While under the GATT 1947 export subsidies for industrial products have been prohibited all along, in the case of agricultural primary products such subsidies were only subject to limited disciplines (Article XVI of GATT) which moreover did not prove to be operational.

The right to use export subsidies is now limited to four situations: (i) export subsidies subject to product-specific reduction commitments within the limits specified in the schedule of the WTO Member concerned; (ii) any excess of budgetary outlays for export subsidies or subsidized export volume over the limits specified in the schedule which is covered by the “downstream flexibility” provision of Article 9.2(b) of the Agreement on Agriculture; (iii) export subsidies consistent with the special and differential treatment provision for developing country Members (Article 9.4 of the Agreement); and (iv) export subsidies other than those subject to reduction commitments provided that they are in conformity with the anti-circumvention disciplines of Article 10 of the Agreement on Agriculture. In all other cases, the use of export subsidies for agricultural products is prohibited (Articles 3.3, 8 and 10 of the Agreement).

Under the Agreement on Agriculture export subsidies are defined as referring to “subsidies contingent on export performance, including the export subsidies listed in detail in Article 9 of [the] Agreement”. As specified in more detail in Article 9.1 of the Agreement, this list covers most of the export subsidy practices which are prevalent in the agricultural sector, notably:

All such export subsidies are subject to reduction commitments, expressed in terms of both the volume of subsidized exports and the budgetary outlays for these subsidies.

The reduction commitments are shown in the schedules of WTO Members on a product-specific basis. For this purpose, the universe of agricultural products was initially divided into 23 products or product groups, such as wheat, coarse grains, sugar, beef, butter, cheese and oilseeds. Some Members took commitments on a more disaggregated level. The volume and budgetary outlay commitments for each product or group of products specified in a Member’s schedule are individually binding. The reduction commitments on “incorporated products” (last item in the Article 9 list) are expressed in terms of budgetary outlays only. The ceilings specified in the schedules must be respected in each year of the implementation period although limited “over-shooting” in the second to fifth year of implementation is permitted (“downstream flexibility”). By the last year of the implementation period, Members must be within their final export subsidy ceilings.

Developed country Members are required to reduce, in equal annual steps over a period of 6 years, the base-period volume of subsidized exports by 21 per cent and the corresponding budgetary outlays for export subsidies by 36 per cent. In the case of developing country Members, the required cuts are 14 per cent over 10 years with respect to volumes, and 24 per cent over the same period with respect to budgetary outlays.

Developing countries may, during the implementation period, make use of a special and differential treatment provision of the Agreement (Article 9.4) which allows them to grant marketing cost subsidies and internal transport subsidies, provided that these are not applied in a manner that would circumvent export subsidy reduction commitments.

All in all, 25 Members (counting the EC as one) have export subsidy reduction commitments specified in their schedules, with a total of 428 individual reduction commitments.

The Agreement on Agriculture prohibits the use of Article 9.1 export subsidies on any agricultural product which is not subject to a reduction commitment as specified in the relevant part of the Member’s schedule (with the exception, during the implementation, period of those benefiting from special and differential treatment).

In addition to the provisions directly related to the reduction commitments, the Agreement on Agriculture contains provisions which are designed to prevent the use of export subsidies that are not specifically listed in Article 9 of the Agreement in such a way as to circumvent reduction on other export subsidy commitments (Article 10). The anti-circumvention provisions include a definition of food aid in order that transactions claimed to be food aid, but not meeting the criteria in the Agreement, cannot be used to undermine commitments. Food aid that meets the specified criteria is not considered to be subsidised export hence is not limited by the Agreement on Agriculture. The Agreement also calls for the development of internationally agreed disciplines on export credits and similar measures in recognition that such measures could also be used to circumvent commitments. Any Member which claims that any quantity exported in excess of a reduction commitment level is not subsidized must establish that no export subsidy, whether listed in Article 9 or not, has been granted in respect of the quantity of exports in question.

All Members must notify the Committee on Agriculture annually with respect to export subsidies. For the vast majority of Members — those without reduction commitments — this involves only a statement to the effect that export subsidies on agricultural products have not been used (or a listing of those measures that may be used by developing country Members under Article 9.4 of the Agreement if this has been the case). For Members with reduction commitments in their schedules, the annual notification must contain the annual use of subsidies in terms of both volume and budgetary outlays.

In addition, as part of the anti-circumvention provisions, Members must notify the use of food aid on an annual basis if such aid is granted. Likewise, total exports of agricultural products must be notified by Members with reduction commitments as well as by a number of other “significant exporters” as defined by the Committee.

As in other areas, the export subsidy notifications form part of the basis for reviewing the progress in the implementation of the commitments by the Committee on Agriculture.

The main reduction commitments are in market access, domestic support and export subsidies. But the Agriculture Agreement contains other provisions, including export restrictions, a “peace clause”, dispute settlement and further negotiations.

The Agreement on Agriculture requires Members which consider to institute new export restrictions on foodstuffs to give due consideration to the effects of such restrictions on importing Members’ food security. Members, except developing country Members which are not net exporters of the product concerned, must notify the Committee on Agriculture before introducing new export restrictions on foodstuffs and consult with affected Members if so requested. This requirement — increased reliability of access to world market supply — is a corollary for the opening of markets which is required by the market access provisions of the Agreement and the related specific commitments undertaken by Members.

The Agreement in Agriculture contains a “due restraint” or “peace clause” which regulates the application of other WTO agreements to subsidies in respect of agricultural products (Article 13). The provisions provide that Green Box domestic support measures cannot be the subject of countervailing duty action or other subsidy action under the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, nor can they be subject to actions based on non-violation nullification or impairment of tariff concessions under the GATT. Other domestic support measures which are in conformity with the provisions of the Agreement on Agriculture may be the subject of countervailing duty actions, but due restraint is to be exercised by Members in initiating such investigations. Further, in so far as the support provided to individual products does not exceed that decided in the 1992 marketing year, these measures are exempt from other subsidy action or nullification or impairment action. Export subsidies conforming to the Agreement on Agriculture are, to the extent relevant, covered by corresponding provisions.

In the case of disputes involving provisions of the Agreement on Agriculture, the general WTO dispute settlement procedures apply. Nevertheless, the Agreement also provides for certain mechanisms that can be used by Members to address their concerns without recourse to these procedures. In particular, the review process of the Committee on Agriculture provides a forum for discussion and consultation. This process is mainly based on the notifications and on a provision (Article 18.6) allowing any Member to raise at any time any matter relevant to the implementation of the commitments under the reform programme as set out in the Agreement. There is also a counter-notification provision. Furthermore, the Working Procedures of the Committee allow Members to request the Chairperson to mediate in concerns that may arise between them. The use of instruments under the auspices of the Committee on Agriculture does not, however, prevent any Member from seeking formal dispute settlement at any time.

The commitments taken under the Agreement on Agriculture and within the Members’ schedules are part of an ongoing process. Already at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round, Members agreed to hold further negotiations on agriculture commencing one year before the end of the six-year implementation period (Article 20). These negotiations will examine what further commitments are necessary to achieve the long-term objective of substantial progressive reductions in support and protection resulting in fundamental reform. The negotiations are also to take into account factors such as the experience gained during the implementation period, the effects of Uruguay Round reduction commitments on world trade in agriculture, non-trade concerns, special and differential treatment to developing country Members and the objective to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system.

The Ministerial Decision on Measures concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on Least-Developed and Net Food-Importing Developing Countries

This Decision was adopted as part of the outcome of the Uruguay Round negotiations on agriculture. The Decision recognises that while the progressive implementation of the results of the Uruguay Round as a whole will generate increasing opportunities for trade expansion and economic growth to the benefit of all Members, during the reform programme least-developed and net food-importing developing countries may experience negative effects in terms of the availability of adequate supplies of basic foodstuffs from external sources on reasonable terms and conditions, including short-term difficulties in financing normal levels of commercial imports of basic foodstuffs.

Ministers agreed to a number of mechanisms to ensure that the implementation of the results of the Uruguay Round does not adversely affect the availability of food aid at a level which is sufficient to continue to provide assistance in meeting the food needs of developing countries. These mechanisms include a review of the level of food aid established periodically by the Committee on Food Aid under the Food Aid Convention and the initiation of negotiations to establish a level of food aid commitments sufficient to meet the legitimate needs of developing countries during the reform programme; the adoption of guidelines to ensure that an increasing proportion of basic foodstuffs is provided in fully grant form; and agreement by the developed country Members to give full consideration in the context of their aid programmes to requests for the provision of technical and financial assistance to least-developed and net food-importing developing countries to improve their agricultural productivity and infrastructure.

Ministers also agreed to ensure that any agreement relating to agricultural export credits makes appropriate provision for differential treatment in favour of least-developed and net food-importing developing countries. The Decision recognizes that in case of short-term difficulties in financing normal levels of commercial imports, net food-importing developing countries may be eligible to draw on the resources of international financial institutions under existing facilities, or such facilities as may be established, in the context of adjustment programmes, in order to address such financing difficulties.

The Decision’s follow-up is monitored by the Committee on Agriculture and it is subject to regular review by the Ministerial Conference. As part of a series of steps to make the Decision operational, the Committee established a WTO list of least-developed and net food-importing countries since the Decision describes but does not list the countries that are to be covered by the Decision. As of July 1999, total membership on that list stood at 19 developing country Members (Barbados, Botswana, Cuba, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Jamaica, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and Venezuela) plus all least-developed countries.

This summary provides an overview of key elements of the Agreement on Agriculture and the related commitments, as described in previous pages.

AMS Aggregate Measure of Support, the preferred calculation of domestic support used for reduction commitments

GATT The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, established in 1947. The abbreviation is used for both the legal text and the institution

GATT 1947 The text of GATT as used until amended by the WTO Agreements which came into force in 1995

GATT 1994 The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as revised in 1994, which is part of the WTO Agreements. GATT 1994 includes GATT 1947 together with amendments.

MFN Most-favoured nation, in the WTO, the principle of treating trading partners equally

MTO Multilateral Trade Organization — the proposed name of the new organization that eventually became the WTO, used during Uruguay Round negotiations (appears in negotiating documents such as "Modalities" for agricultural commitments)

WTO The World Trade Organization, established as the successor to the GATT on 1 January 1995