Agriculture

USTR's Office of Agricultural Affairs has overall responsibility for negotiations and policy coordination regarding agriculture. Staff works with the Chief Agriculture Negotiator and other USTR officials as appropriate.

Specific responsibilities include Free Trade Agreements (FTA) and World Trade Organization (WTO) Development Agenda (Doha) negotiations on agriculture, operation of the WTO Committees on Agriculture and on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures, agricultural regulatory issues (e.g., biotechnology, cloning, BSE, nanotechnology, other bilateral SPS issues, and customs issues affecting agriculture), monitoring and enforcement of existing WTO and FTA commitments for agriculture (including SPS issues), and WTO accession negotiations on agriculture market access, domestic supports and export competition, and SPS matters.

The office monitors U.S. implementation of Farm Bill programs to ensure consistency with international obligations in the WTO, and also is responsible for policy coordination of U.S. activities in agriculture committees of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).