By Stefan Tangermann

In the Uruguay Round, a major step forward was made in terms of agreeing international rules and commitments for agricultural policy making. After four decades of largely unsuccessful attempts at establishing effective and operational rules for agriculture in the GATT, the Uruguay Round negotiations achieved a breakthrough. Nearly tens years have now passed since the conclusion of these negotiations. How have agricultural policies during this period responded to the new international framework of rules and commitments? Have the Uruguay Round negotiations on agriculture been successful in achieving their objectives? How have agriculture policies developed under the newly established Agreement on Agriculture?

This paper makes a modest attempt at providing at least some partial answers to these questions, regarding policy developments in the thirty member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED). This paper starts by providing some quantitative evidence on agricultural policy developments in the OCED countries. This section includes a series of graphs demonstrating such concepts as price and producer support level, commodity compositions, support composition, and support levels and cumulative production value. The paper then looks toward discussing the WTO and domestic policy decisions from the direction that the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture has interacted with agriculture policy making in the OCED area. The author concludes with careful evolutionary analysis for the agenda of agricultural policy dialogue in the OECD.

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