The Hindu : National : India to protect food security at WTO

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 11, 2004

National

National

India to protect food security at WTO

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 10. India has decided to protect its food security before giving any concessions on market access at the negotiations on agriculture at the World Trade Organisation. A mandate to this effect has been given to the Commerce and Industry Minister, Kamal Nath, who leaves tonight for the UNCTAD XI conference being held in Brazil.

He will be meeting other countries at the conference and hold discussions on WTO negotiations which are scheduled to be held in Geneva next month.

The mandate was given by the Cabinet Committee on WTO Affairs headed by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, at its second meeting today.

According to Mr. Nath, the mandate is for negotiating the criterion and mechanism for the draft framework to be discussed next month at WTO.

He told presspersons that the Cabinet Committee stressed that there should be no compromise on the country's food security which would be guarded before giving any market access. Indian agriculture was unique owing to varying climatic conditions and multiple products with many small farmers and thus needed to be guarded.

The country had to ensure that farmers were not only given the right price but also ensure that there was no dumping, he said.

Regarding the method to provide protection to Indian agriculture, he said provisions were being designed in the form of special products, special protection mechanisms and tariff rate quotas.

He said there was no problem about products not being produced here but only those where India had sensitivities. On the Singapore issues, he said that India was in favour of trade facilitation and transparency in procedures. The committee had earlier appointed a group of Ministers presided over by the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, to give a direction on the strategy to be adopted at these critical negotiations on agriculture.

The group met yesterday and submitted its proposals to the committee at today's meeting.

Mr. Nath, who is leading a high-level official delegation to Sao Paulo will be meeting the members of the Group of 20 as well as a core group of the G-20, known as the Non-Group-5 (NG-5) prior to the UNCTAD conference.

The non-Group -5 includes India, Brazil, the U.S., the EU and Australia. These meetings assume significance since the UNCTAD conference is the first major international trade meeting since the Cancun ministerial conference of WTO ended conclusively in September last year. The G-20 consists of a coalition of developing countries on agriculture issues and aims to represent the needs of millions of farmers in the major less developed regions of the world. The G-20 came into being in August 2003, largely as a reaction to the joint framework proposal on agriculture submitted to WTO by the U.S. and the European communities.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National