This chapter outlines the book’s evaluation of experience and prospects for future guidance through the WTO toward socially desirable domestic support policies and constraints on those that distort agricultural trade. The analysis addresses seven areas, including description of the rules of the Agreement on Agriculture applying to developed and developing members, the evolution of support (China and India recently among large-support members) and across policies (shift toward exempted measures with minimal distorting effects), and the difficult interface between economic and legal analysis (measurement of market price support (MPS) and exemption of some distorting support). Transparency and ongoing negotiations are apprised and key disputes about domestic support are summarized, including through members’ obligations in the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. Policy space to address 21st century non-trade priorities, prominently sustainability and climate change mitigation, is assessed. The book is designed to build a foundation for meaningful and feasible future reforms.

Review in the Committee on Agriculture of implementation of domestic support commitments is assessed in this chapter, drawing on the WTO’s Agricultural Information Management System (Ag-IMS). A total of 4,051 domestic support questions were posed toward 108 members between 1995 and mid-2021, particularly about support claimed as green box exempt, calculation of AMS support, and transparency. There are substantial delays in the submission of notifications and questions in the review process often do not elicit informative answers. Nonetheless, the Committee exchanges increase members’ understanding of others’ policies and interpretations of the Agreement. Measuring MPS is complex, can have a decisive bearing on assessment of a member’s compliance with its support obligations, and often is not resolved through Committee discussion, as demonstrated by the notifications and counter-notifications submitted concerning India’s AMS support for wheat and other products in later years.