Change from Crisis, Not Retreat WTO members discussed agriculture at a retreat designed non-retreat yesterday that discussed the obvious – the rules badly need updating. The distortions from subsidies, market access barriers and export restrictions get worse each year, not better. Even the 2015 agreement to ban export subsidies has been made moot by reference prices, loans, insurance subsidies, and direct payments whose distortions move across borders. The presentations and discussions no doubt provided some meetings of the minds, but retreats and conferences rarely are the watershed for change. Instead, it is usually crises that are the catalyst for major changes. Despite all the critics seeing a current crisis, it isn’t yet b...