The U.S. refusal to make deeper cuts to its agricultural subsidies was one of the main reasons for suspension of negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva. The United States was offering more cuts, but only if other countries made much bigger cuts to their tariffs. Since the U.S. offer on subsidies was still limited and since none of the other WTO members had a mandate to get near the U.S. market access demands, governments called it quits.

Has a huge opportunity for agricultural subsidy reform been lost? No, for at least two reasons.

First, the Doha negotiations never offered much real subsidy reduction, except the long-awaited promise from the E.U. to finally eliminate its export subsidies. This commitment should be pursued with or without a larger agreement on agriculture. On domestic support for agriculture, however, negotiators are tangled up in 'boxes' categorizing types of subsidies that reflect power politics not economic realities. The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture gave legitimacy to the creation of new U.S. domestic support programs that have proven more expensive than the programs they replaced. The new programs have also aggravated the practice of exporting commodities at prices below their cost of production (dumping). The old programs, using price floors and production controls, did not prevent dumping, but they acknowledged agricultural markets do not clear readily on price triggers alone and limited the volume available for dumping.

Secondly, multilateral reform can help push domestic politics in new directions, but the two have to work in tandem. There has to be a domestic constituency that participates in and supports reform, educating politicians and affected sectors about the benefits of change. No democratic government can ratify a trade deal without buy-in from at least the more powerful of the affected domestic constituencies. There is broad agreement that U.S. farm policy needs urgent reform, but no consensus on what kind. Meanwhile, faith that more exports is the answer to what ails U.S. farming is at a ten-year low, reflecting badly (if not altogether fairly) on the decade since the WTO came into effect.

Can governments and reform advocates use this moment to bring rational reform of agricultural policy in rich countries any closer? Yes, again for at least two reasons.

First, governments need to rethink the structure of the Agreement on Agriculture. Most WTO members built their Doha proposals on the framework built by the Uruguay Round. That will not do. Governments need also to tackle some of the deeper structural problems affecting agricultural trade, including the dominance of oligopolies (which hurts both farmers and consumers), and the tension between protecting public health with the need for predictable market access for poorer countries. These standards are essential yet easy to abuse.

Secondly, governments need to reflect on why so few supported the Doha vision of agriculture. A number of farm organizations supported the Uruguay Round but the majority opposed Doha. Agriculture touches too many facets of public life-employment, environment, culture, food security-for governments not to get involved, including in some cases with subsidies. "Least trade distorting" should not be the only criterion used to decide which subsidies make sense. Doha's collapse is a chance for governments to build support around a more pragmatic vision for the role of trade in agriculture.

Sophia Murphy is a senior advisor at Trade and Global Governance, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Minneapolis, Minnesota.