ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, trade in agriculture has become one of the most prominent and acrimonious issues on the world trade agenda. A solution to some of these controversies, particularly those surrounding agricultural export subsidies and related domestic measures (such as price supports and production quotas) was crucial to the successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations. Protectionism has been pervasive in the agricultural sector in Canada, the United States, the EU and Japan. Prior to the Uruguay Round Final Act, the GATT itself placed fewer strictures on agricultural protection than was the case with most other sectors. Moreover, a number of the major exporting states had come close to ignoring GATT requirements altogether, even to the point of refusing to implement GATT panel decisions. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that the costs of agricultural protection to taxpayers and consumers in the OECD countries alone amounts to about $US300 billion each year. The IMF has also found that liberalization of this sector, involving both trade and domestic policy reforms in these countries, would result in gains to consumers and taxpayers far outweighing losses to agricultural producers.1
