Uruguay Round commitments on domestic support: Their implications for developing countries

This paper examines the basic provisions of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture on domestic support and their relative importance, especially from the perspective of developing countries. It gives some indication of the extent to which difficulties may arise from differences in interpretation and implementation of certain provisions, which may result in contentious issues in the future. Further, the paper focuses on the implications of the commitments made for food and agricultural policy in developing countries. In particular, it discusses in some detail the compatability of the new disciplines with agricultural and food policies normally pursued by developing countries. Although, by and large, developing countries have provided small amounts of direct price support to agriculture in the past, the paper concludes that, in general, the Agreement on Agriculture per se is not likely to present serious constraints to them in pursuing their agricultural and food policies on production, consumption and domestic market stabilization. In most cases constraints are likely to come from budgetary austerity and commitments that countries have made under Structural Adjustment Programmes. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd