The Hindu : 'India should roll back concessions on farm commodities'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 18, 2003

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'India should roll back concessions on farm commodities'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI SEPT. 17. The failure of the fifth ministerial World Trade Organisation negotiations at Cancun has opened a new historical opportunity for India to rollback the concessions in trade and Quantitative Restrictions it gave on farm commodities, as it has become obvious that the developed countries will not cut back on their farm and export subsidies, leading social and environment activist Vandana Shiva said here today. The U.S. gives a daily subsidy of about $1 billion to its farmers.

On her return from Cancun, Dr. Shiva, Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, said the Government must take the Cancun failure as a "blessing in disguise" to do a serious re-think on the Agreement on Agriculture of the WTO which did not talk of food security and agriculture production but only of agri-businesses of multi-national companies. The talks collapsed because the U.S. and the European Union insisted on continuing "unfair and unfree agriculture trade", which was killing the third-world farmers. The rich countries had indicated that they would not reform or let the WTO reform.

"The failure of Cancun emphasises the need for setting up a global institution to regulate prices so that they do not fall so low as to wipe out farmers and their livelihoods. The suicide by the Korean farmer was so that other farmers could survive. In India alone about 25,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1996 due to unfair trade practices," she asserted.

Saying that the Cancun failure was a victory for democracy and the developing countries, Dr. Shiva said India should now insist that it would not open its economy to unfair competition. "It is time to forget that North is our market. In fact, that market is totally closed."

The commitment for the removal of quantitative and duty restrictions on agriculture commodities was done in a bilateral agreement with the U.S. Now, when it was clear that neither the U.S. nor the European Union, would lower subsidies now or in the future, the Government must come back to Parliament on issues that made a life and death difference to people. It must open its eyes to the harm that monopoly trade had done to cotton, soybean, corn and coffee growers the world over.

According to Dr. Shiva, the threat and blackmail of being dragged to the Disputes Forum is no longer there. "There is no reason for the Government of India to continue behaving helpless. If Bush can support farm subsidies because it is election year, then it is time for Vajpayee to protect farmers and their livelihoods in the coming election year. The ball is now in the national political court." Asked if India must opt out of the WTO now, Dr. Shiva said the country had achieved at Cancun what it might have done by slipping out. The G-23 group would sustain despite U.S. declaration that it would go in for bilateral agreements. "Cancun has seen the birth of a new solidarity between South and South, on the one hand, and a new partnership between the civil societies and the governments, on the other. For the first time, the leader of the Indian delegation, Arun Jaitley, acknowledged the role of civil societies." She said the former Commerce Minister, Murasoli Maran's expression, "explicit consent'' (of developing nations) was a legacy that was echoed in all discussions.

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