Canada's domestic agricultural supports and the World Trade Organization

Signed in 1993, the Agreement was intended to strengthen the rules governing agricultural trade with the aim of establishing a fair and market-oriented trading system, as well as to improve predictability and stability for both importing and exporting countries. [...] This paper provides a brief overview of the domestic support provisions contained in the 1993 Agreement on Agriculture, including an examination of the types of supports that are included in the colour-coded “boxes” used by the WTO to identify which subsidies are permissible and which were (and will continue to be) subject to reductions. [...] Under the de minimis provisions, once the value of a product-specific support falls below 5% of the total value of production of that good, no further reductions are required. [...] In addition, the Agreement also produced a fourth colour, the “blue box,” created at the insistence of negotiators from the European Union (EU) and the United States, who demanded greater flexibility in applying their respective agricultural policies to the new international rules. [...] CANADA’S AGRICULTURAL SUPPORT PROGRAMS According to the schedule of AMS reductions in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, Canada’s maximum allowable AMS fell from $5.2 billion in 1995 to $4.3 billion in 2000.