Agriculture in the WTO: Member Spending on Domestic Support

Under the World Trade Organizations (WTOs) Agreement on Agriculture (AA) member countries agreed to general rules regarding disciplines on domestic subsidies (as well as on export subsidies and market access). The AAs goal was to provide a framework for the leading members of the WTO to make changes in their domestic farm policies to facilitate more open trade. Under the AA domestic spending is disaggregated according to those outlays that have the greatest potential to distort agricultural markets (i.e. amber box) and therefore are subject to spending limits and more benign outlays (i.e. which cause less market distortion) that are exempted from spending limits under green box blue box de minimis or special and differential treatment exemptions.