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In many cases, tariffs were the only form of protection for agricultural products before the Uruguay Round the Round led to the binding in the WTO of a maximum level for these tariffs. For many other products, however, market access restrictions involved non-tariff barriers. This was frequently, though not only, the case for major temperate zone agricultural products. The Uruguay Round negotiations aimed to remove such barriers. For this purpose, a tariffication package was agreed which, amongst other things, provided for the replacement of agriculture-specific non-tariff measures with a tariff which afforded an equivalent level of protection. The tariffs resulting from the tariffication process account, on average of the developed country Members, for around one fifth of the total number of agricultural tariff lines. For the developing country Members, this share is considerably smaller. Following the entry into force of the Agreement on Agriculture, there is now a prohibition on agriculture-specific non-tariff measures, and the tariffs on virtually all agricultural products traded internationally are bound in the WTO.
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