WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  RESTRICTED 
G/AG/W/105 
5 November 2012 
 (12-6106) 
Committee on Agriculture Original:   English 
  
 
REVIEW OF DOMESTIC SUPPORT NOTIFICATIONS 
 
Policy Evolution – An Assessment of Transparency and Consistency 
 
Communication from the United States 
  1. Article 18 of the Agreement on Agriculture charges the regular Committee on Agriculture 
(Committee) with reviewing Members' implemen tation of commitments.  Review is based on 
Members' notifications as well as documentation prepar ed by the Secretariat.  The review process 
applies to all agriculture discip lines for all three pillars (i.e., ma rket access, export competition, 
domestic support).  The United States initiated at the June 2012 Committee meeting a comprehensive 
review of the domestic support pillar.  Subsequent ly, a broad concept for a domestic support review 
was provided in document G/AG/W/97.  Members have  made clear that the rules and disciplines on 
domestic support are crucially important for good functioning of the world agricultural trading 
system, and therefore, timely and transparent notifications are vitally important.  Since 1995 
Committee Members have offered both general and specific suggestions to increase understanding of 
domestic support commitments to enhance the Co mmittee's review process and to improve the 
functioning of the Agreement on Agriculture.  A June 2009 summary document (G/AG/GEN/85) 
provides one recent example of Members' concerns and suggestions. 
2. The variety and depth of suggestions put forth over the 18 years of the Agreement on 
Agriculture's existence range fro m minor transparency clarifications to potentially significant 
interpretations of the Agreement.  The Committee h as informally suggested some "best practices" to 
encourage efficiency and clarity in the exchange of review information (for example, provision of written responses to questions at meetings).  Howeve r, the Committee has not ventured to change or 
update any operational procedures, notification fo rmats nor notification guidance since 1995.  Yet 
current notification "requirements" in G/AG/2 still include " submitting a diskette containing the same 
information in Lotus format (tables) or Word Perfect format (text) " and widely-agreed unrealistic 
90-day submission deadlines for domestic support notifications.  The United States believes 
comprehensively reviewing the overall process of notifying domestic support in a methodical and transparent fashion offers Member s a positive, focused channel to reflect on a wide range of domestic 
support issues and to consider, as appropriate, chan ges to the existing Committe e procedures, formats, 
and guidelines. 
3. It is not the intent of the United States to suggest the Committee should over- or under-
emphasize any one of the three pillars.  The Comm ittee also has no benchmark as to what might be 
considered a "normal" distribution of its activities and efforts since 1995.  It appears, however, that 
the Committee has expended relatively more effort towards understanding domestic support 
notifications.  Factually establishing what role dom estic support has played in the Committee appears 
to be a logical and useful task.  To this end the following attributes and data may be useful towards 
gaining such common understandings: 
(a) Focus on DS Tables:   A significant number of the Committee's established 
notifications (including Supporting Tables)  are in the required domestic support G/AG/W/105 
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  notifications.  The eleven distinct tables c ontained in a Table DS:1 notification often 
have lengthy, complex and inter-related numbers, which reinforces the need to 
undertake a comprehensive review of the domestic support process. 
(b) Table DS:1 Compliance Summary:   Since 2009, the Secretariat has helpfully 
undertaken to regularly update Members' compliance with notification requirements 
(G/AG/GEN/86 series).  This data accurate ly portrays each Member's notification 
status.  Missing, however, is a broader sen se of compliance for all notifications 
including summary data for the export competition and market access pillars.  A 
factual summary regarding Members' u se or non-use of the eleven different 
supporting tables within the Table DS:1 notification could possibly help point to 
areas needing more assistance or understanding. 
(c) Table DS:2 Assessment:   Supplementary information is required for all new or 
modified measures exempt from reducti on commitments (Table DS:2).  The 
Members' Transparency Toolkit indicates as of mid-October 2012 that a total of 143 Table DS:2 notifications from 37 Members exist since 1995. 
(d) DS Questions in the Committee:   No reliable indication exists regarding the 
categories of questions that Members have posed in the Committee over nearly 
18 years.  Such factual findings could be  usefully broken down to know the number 
of questions for each of the three pillars as well as a finer break out based on recently 
applied sub-categories used to group questions (e.g., Tariff and other quotas – Tariff 
quota fill;  Green Box – Direct payment;  Amber Box – Market price support) . 
4. A comprehensive review of domestic support sh ould involve various types of information 
exchanges among the membership.  One set of inform ation is numerically-oriented summary analysis 
as outlined in the preceding paragraph.  Simple  quantitative summaries can point to aggregated 
changes over time, for example the amount of increased  or decreased use of support in the different 
domestic support boxes, or even the use of certain types of measures within a box. 
5. Measurements of domestic support must, however, be consistent to be meaningful.  Apples 
must be compared with apples and not with orange s.  Thus Members must have a strong sense that 
values and classification applied in each notification ar e consistently applied.  Assessing applied tariff 
data against one’s bound commitment is relativel y easy, straight-forward, and definitive.  Ensuring 
domestic support numbers are consistent, on the contrary, demands a solid understanding of the 
Members' underlying policy design and how a measure is practically implemented.   
6. The Agreement on Agriculture established a re latively simple framework for classifying all 
policy measures supporting agricultural producers.  In relatively few words this Agreement on 
Agriculture framework accounts for a wide range of  different policies for reduction commitments and 
exemptions.  Measures employed by developed economies took on a central focus during the negotiation of the Agreement on Agriculture, e.g., fixed and variable target prices, minimum import 
prices, supply control measures, government purchasing, quantitative import restrictions, and 
state-trading enterprises, etc.  The process of ques tions and responses in the Committee has assisted in 
adding more transparency, and in certain cases, th e notifying Member has re-notified under a different 
classification.  In other cases, the recognition has be en determined, but a revision has not occurred.  
To ensure accurate and consistent classificati ons of a wide range of domestic support measures 
requires transparency and timeliness on the part of all Members. 
7. The WTO membership displayed great agricultural policy diversity leading up to its inaugural 
day in 1995.  Agricultural policy diversity con tinues as membership jumped to 157 today from 128 
in 1994.  This diversity also adds complexity to classifying domestic support policy measures.  A  G/AG/W/105 
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  second source of diversity in agricultural po licy comes from continually evolving and innovative 
designs for implementing domestic support measures.  This dynamic is true for WTO Members as of 
1995 as well as for the 29 Members acceding since then. 
8. The Agreement on Agriculture provides for exact ly the same rights and obligations today as 
in 1995.  No rules have changed;  no procedures have been updated;  notif ication formatting remains 
identical;  and the 1995 notification guidelines for Members have not been modified.  The absence of 
change represents a factual observation – neith er necessarily good nor bad.  Comprehensively 
reviewing domestic support can logically start with asse ssing the role transparency is playing and, as 
appropriate, how to possibly improve the transpar ency in domestic support notifications.  Such 
Committee review does not fundamentally ques tion the established Agreement on Agriculture 
framework and rules.  Initially a focus shoul d be on questions surrounding sufficiency of 
transparency, consistency in understandings, and clarity in implementing domestic support 
notifications. 
Summary – Conclusion 
 
9. In line with the elements fo r political guidance from the 8th Ministerial Conference, this 
contribution seeks to strengthen and improve the f unctioning in the work in the regular Committee.  
The Committee has focused strongly on individual Memb ers' notifications.  Much excellent work has 
been done in the Committee.  Factual overviews of the Committee's (relativ e and absolute) work on 
domestic support notifications (as per suggestions in paragraph 3)  will facilitate unde rstanding.  Such 
summaries do not represent endpoints themselves, but will add depth of understanding regarding 
Members' transparency in the Co mmittee.  The Secretariat's provision of raw data through the online 
Members' Transparency Toolkit is useful, and ca n be helpfully augmented with the Secretariat's 
additional documentation based on Members' notified data and questions in the Committee.  As per 
Article 18, we look forward to the Secretariat's effo rts in this regard to facilitate a comprehensive 
domestic support review. 
 
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