Other States - Rajasthan   

Call for protecting farmers' interests

Special Correspondent

Farmers "net losers", say experts

JAIPUR: The Food, Trade and Nutrition (FTN) Coalition-Asia and Make Trade Fair Campaign on Tuesday called upon the Centre to remain steadfast in its commitment to safeguard farmers' interests and introduce reforms to make farmers and products globally competitive in the wake of India pulling out of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations in Geneva.

The two organisations, along with the Jaipur-based Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants' Society (CECOEDECON), said in a joint statement here that farmers were "net losers" once again in India's withdrawal from the WTO talks early this month. They said the lack of negotiating space and absence of choice were not the only reasons why India had pulled out of the negotiations.

Gurinder Kaur of FTN Coalition and Krishna Kumar of MTF Campaign said the lack of manoeuvrability in which India was now finding itself had arisen because the Central Government went overboard in hailing the outcome of the sixth WTO Hong Kong ministerial conference.

The two organisations, while calling for reforms in both international and national trade rules so that trade could be used as an effective means to end poverty, stated that India could still be hopeful of getting closer to realising the "development dimensions" of the Doha Development Agenda by December this year.

The outcome of the Hong Kong ministerial in 2005 and mini-ministerial in Geneva recently had belied hopes of billions of people, especially the rural poor and peasants in India.

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

Stories in this Section

`Jats appreciate Sonia's gesture'
`Rewrite history with a positive outlook'
Rajasthan to take SATCOM to all villages
Call for protecting farmers' interests
29 convicted for murder

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu