Farmers happy over Doha failure;want WTO's wind-up

New Delhi, Jul 31 (UNI) Indian farmers are relieved over the collapse of the global trade talks at the World Trade Organisation.

Stating that the failure of the 9-day-long mini-ministerial held in Geneva to finalise the Doha Round has vindicated the stand of Bharatiya Krishak Samaj, its president Krishan Bir Chaudhary said WTO has become "ineffective and needs to be wind up".

He said; "WTO is practically hopeless and helpless after successive failures of a series of attempts to revive the multilateral trade negotiations. The time has already demonstrated that this multi-lateral trade system is absolutely incapable of achieving the objectives of the Doha Development Round.

Therefore, the Bharatiya Krishak Samaj has urged that WTO should be wind up immediately".

"We are very happy. Indian farmers have always wanted agriculture to be taken out of the Doha Round talks," said Yudhvir Singh, spokesperson, Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers, as well as the Bharatiya Kisan Union.

Chaudhary said the latest WTO text on agriculture completely ignored the food security and livelihood concerns of the farmers in the developing countries.

The draft, he added, proposed a weak defence against the possible influx of cheap and subsidised imports by suggesting a complicated system for implementation of special safeguard mechanism (SSM) by the developing countries.

The BKS complimented Mr Kamal Nath for taking a firm stand on the SSM.

He said the collapse is also good for the infant industries as the revised Nama(industrial products)draft proposals, if accepted, will have also sounded death knell for the small and medium industries in the developing countries.

UNI SAA AK PK KP1838