Canadian agriculture and the Doha development agenda

Relative to the typical lifespan of multilateral trade negotiations, the five years since the launch of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) have been a mere blink of the eye. [...] Despite reduced intervention prices, the increased value of the euro (relative to the US dollar) and increased transportation costs could create pressure for the EU to expand its use of export restitutions for grain.7 What is the probability that the EU will be forced to use export subsidies?. [...] A simplistic extrapolation of the potential use of EU export subsidies can be assessed by determining the probability that the EU intervention price for wheat will exceed the world price for a comparable grade of wheat. [...] The Framework Agreement will result in the eventual elimination of the government guarantee for the CWB’s borrowing as well as the guarantee for the initial payment. [...] As such, this debt could be transferred to the books of the federal government and for all practical purposes the old debt is not relevant to the potential disciplines in the Framework Agreement.11.