— Rabindra Nath Sarma
All throughout the ministerial level negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) India has been sounding to the world that food and livelihood security is the basic concern of the people, any-where and anytime, which must be preserved at any cost. In the last ministerial level meeting in Geneva, sometime in the first week of July, 2008 our Commerce Minister rightly said in the course of his discourses, “I can negotiate commerce, but cannot negotiate livelihood security”. By this he must have implied that food and livelihood security is not a trade related issue. He further said that he had the mandate of his Prime Minister. We sincerely believe that this be the mandate of the nation as a whole.
The issue was all about opening up of our agricultural (food) market to the developed countries. The US suggestion was that we should open our agricultural market to the extent of 40 per cent surge over the average of the last three years, and then alone enhance our tariff on the import of farm produce by 15 per cent to check the import of farm produce from the foreign countries. To this our Commerce Minister said, “By the time we have 40 per cent surge in imports our farmers would have committed suicide”. We need not go far to understand the gravity of the situation confronting us, but a mere reference to the words of the Commerce Minister should enable us to realise it. The alternative proposal, jointly put forth by India and China was that the developing countries may be allowed to impose extra 25 per cent duty on import of farm products if import exceeds by 15 per cent. The US did not agree to this proposal.
The developing countries are opposed to opening up their agricultural market because of the fact that the magnitude of domestic support to the farm sector in the developed countries is so high that it would under-cut the cost of production significantly in these countries and the Indian farmers will be left with very little chance of standing-up against the enslought of foreign farm products. One can imagine how massive is the domestic support extended by the developed countries to their farm sector from the World Bank report that the European Union countries and US together allowed domestic support to their farm sector to the tune of 370 billion dollar in a year. This massive support will certainly under cut the cost of production of their agricultural products significantly. In the event of opening up our agricultural market our farmers have very little chance of offering any competition to highly subsidised farm products from the developed countries.
The disparities in income of the two sectors, viz industrial and agricultural sectors in the developed countries forced them to look for market expansion for their agricultural products and they are exerting tremendous pressure on the developing countries including India, who with her over a billion population can provide a very lucrative market for their agricultural products. They wanted that countries like India should regiment with their policies of market expansion. When India refused to agree to their policies they cast very biased remark against India. Our Commerce Minister said. “They are telling me that since you arrived, you are making things more difficult. We were making alright.” On another occasion some group of countries told our Commerce Minister, to quote his own words. “They (the developed countries) are charging me that I am breaking the talks”. Even China and Brazil, members of the G 20 deserted India at the crucial moment. It is time to give some closer look at the things with a view to re-orient our diplomatic approach to countries with whom we must maintain cordial relation for our own sake. It is imperative that we must protect food and livelihood security of our millions of farmers at all cost. This is our basic conviction and basic ideal. In this connection it would not be out of context to recall some words of Indira Gandhi, our former Prime Minister. She said “We must have certain amount of flexibility, but it must be consistent with national interest andn honour and we cannot manoeuvre or change where basic conviction and basic ideals, and aims and objectives are concerned.”
It is difficult to make a precise forecast about how the people of our own state will be affected in the event of free trade in agriculture. Our cultivators, rather the rural population covering the entire North-East will face serious competition in the export of some spices like ginger and some fruits like pineapples. Because free trade means entry of more competitors in the market. Bilateral trade will cease to exist. Already, export of ginger from our State, to countries like Germany and smee Middle-East countries considerably reduced because of competition from countries like Tanzania and China. There is possibility that even green tea leaf may fine its way to our State from some African countries creating problem for our small tea growers. Import relaxation will depress the price of arecanut, significantly reducing the supplementary income of our rural farmers. It actually happened some 4/5 years back when the price of arecanut depressed to Rs 20/25 from Rs 80 per standard unit of 80 nuts.
It should not be difficult for one to realise that eventhough in successive rounds of Ministerial level meeting of the WTO we have been persistently opposing the issue of opening the agricultural market, more or less successfully, a time is bound to come when the countries with heavy stake in the international/free trade will gain the confidence of smaller countries by some means or other and get through their proposals in the WTO negotiations. It is high time that our country should be prepared for such an eventuality. For our own State, there should be effective planning for land and water management to augment the agricultural production. Cultivation should be reoriented, remodelled by application of more and more scientific approach. Contingency plan should be made well ahead to absorb the agricultural labourers thrown out of employment. source: assam tribune editorial 13.09.08
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