An index that measures the monetary value of the extent of government support to a sector. The AMS, as defined in the Agreement on Agriculture, includes both budgetary outlays as well as revenue transfers from consumers to producers as a result of policies that distort market prices. The AMS includes actual or calculated amounts of direct payments to producers (such as deficiency payments), input subsidies (on irrigation water, for example), the estimated value of revenue transferred from consumers to producers as a result of policies that distort market prices (market price supports), and interest subsidies on commodity loan programs. The AMS differs from the broader agricultural support measure, the Producer Subsidy Equivalent, by excluding estimated benefits (or costs) of certain non-commodity specific policies (e.g., research and environmental programs), and by using special WTO-defined measures of deficiency payments and market price supports. Furthermore, the final AMS for the WTO implementation period (1995-2000) is adjusted to exclude deficiency payments under WTO special provisions, even though they are included in the WTO base period.
An indicator of the amount of domestic support for agriculture. As used in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, the AMS refers to a measure of the gap between domestic and world prices multiplied by the quantity supported, plus any other commodity-specific transfers. Internal or domestic support reduction commitments in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture are expressed in terms of reductions in a total AMS covering all trade-distorting internal support measures for agriculture.