CORRECT DISTORTIONS IN INTERNATIONAL
ENVIRONMENT BEFORE GLOBAL MARKETS ARE INGTEGRATED, SAYS RAJNATH
SINGH
The Agriculture Minister,
Shri Rajnath Singh has called for correcting distortions in the
present international environment of agricultural production and
support before global markets are integrated . He was addressing
a Seminar on "Easing the Transition to More Open Global Markets"
here today. He said that the surest way to fair and painless transition
to a more open global market is to achieve substantial reduction
in subsidies, presently being provided by the developed countries
to their agriculture. The Minister pointed out that the cyclical
nature of prices of agricultural products , combined with the
exceptionally high amount of subsidies provided by the developed
countries to their agriculture poses a real threat to farmers
in the developing countries. If the present levels of subsidies
are retained, any integration with global markets in agricultural
products will mean disaster for agriculture in the developing
countries. The Minister said that in such a situation , the developing
countries will have no option but to apply higher levels of tariff
protection, so that their agriculture survives the under-priced
cheap imports from the developed countries. Shri Rajnath Singh
pointed out that it is in this context that the Indian proposals
for negotiations on the Agreement on Agriculture must be seen.
He lamented that the multilateral rules defined by the WTO Agreement
on Agriculture do not take into consideration the concerns of
the member nations except for a notional special treatment to
the developing countries.
Shri Rajnath
Singh pointed out that application of sanitary and phytosanitary
measures, especially by the developed countries in the post Uruguay
round period has been another impediment to the opening of global
markets for exports from developing countries. He said that no
amount of rationalisation of tariff would bring the fruits of
globalisation to the developing countries so long as the world
trade in agricultural products is affected by discriminatory application
of these standards. In effect, the standards have created an even
higher and more impregnable wall of protection than that created
by tariffs. The Minister felt that some of the standards applied
by the developed countries are not even based on scientific principles.
He called for rational application of these measures to make the
transition to more open markets, equitable. Stressing the need
to improve the present capacity in the developing countries to
comply with the necessary standards, the Minister urged the multi-lateral
institutions such as WTO and FAO to contribute towards such capacity
building in the developing countries.
Shr Rajnath Singh
emphasised that globalisation of agriculture in itself cannot
be taken as an objective to be pursued. It must lead to improvement
in the living conditions of scores of farmers in the developing
countries. To achieve this objective through globalisation, the
distortions in the present system must be addressed first.
The Minister
listed the steps taken by India to integrate its agriculture with
the world markets including removal of QRs and reduction in import
duties on agricultural products. He pointed out that in certain
sectors, specially edible oils, the removal of QRs has led to
significant stress to domestic oilseeds producers. India resisted
the temptation to raise the import duties on edible oils even
to the level of WTO bound rates for the sake of integration with
the global markets, he added.
The two day Seminar
has been jointly organised by the International Food and Agriculture
Trade Policy Council and the National Institute of Agriculture,
India. Senior Government officials, agricultural scientists and
trade experts, etc. from various countries are taking part in
Seminar.
