India firm on agriculture in Geneva WTO talks

New Delhi, Jul 1: Standing firm on day two of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Mini-Ministerial Meeting in Geneva, Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath made it clear that livelihood and food security interests of millions of India's subsistence farmers were not negotiable.

'' I can negotiate commerce, but not subsistence'', he reiterated at each of his interactions so far, including the green room and trade negotiations committee meetings yesterday as also at the G-6 meeting on Thursday, which was attended by the US, EU, Brazil, Australia and Japan, besides India.

Hitting out at attempts to rewrite the Hong Kong Declaration, the Framework Agreement and the Doha Development Agenda itself, Mr Kamal Nath reminded developed countries that the Doha Round is all about increasing trade flows from developing countries to the developed countries, about agricultural reform and about market access for agricultural products, not of subsidies.

The mandate is essentially to accelerate the growth rate of the economies of developing countries so as to raise the living standards of the millions of the world's poor living on the edge of subsistence and not for salvaging economies of developed countries (through continuance of subsidies that distort world agricultural trade and other inequities).

Reduction in trade distorting agricultural subsidies is a pre-condition for market access, he added. Agriculture is the most distorted sector of world trade and 85 per cent of domestic support or subsidy payments in the world are made by the developed countries. Developing countries do not have the resources to make such payments to the farmers and hence, these distortions come in the way of free and fair trade in agricultural products as farmers in developing countries are not able to compete with the artificially low prices induced by such heavy subsidies in overseas markets nor can they compete with cheap imports.

Mr Kamal Nath urged all members to bear in mind the para 24 of the Hong Kong Declaration which stated that it is important to advance the development objectives of this Round through enhanced market access for developing countries in both Agriculture and NAMA i.e.,non-agricultural market access or industrial tariffs.

Later at a press conference of the G-33 - a grouping of countries with defensive interests in agriculture, he joined the other ministers in demanding that the modalities for negotiations for Special Products and Special Safeguard Mechanism in agriculture must address their food security, livelihood and development needs. They said that 18 indicators for determining Special Products had already been tabled by the G-33.

'' The G-33 should not be expected to shoulder the cost of achieving purely mercantilist goals of a few at the expense of putting their own development paths in peril'', he stressed.

UNI