India seeks place on Brazil-US table

NEW DELHI: India has sought permission from the World Trade Organization to participate in Brazil’s discussions with the US on domestic farm subsidies provided by the US government and its committed levels at the WTO.

Brazil filed a complaint recently at the WTO stating that the domestic farm support provided by the US was much more than its WTO commitment of limiting it to $19 billion per annum. It also questioned the export credit guarantees provided by the US government to agri exporters on more favourable terms than others available in the market.

India, in a submission to the WTO’s dispute settlement body, claimed that since it had a substantial interest in the proceedings, it should be allowed to participate in the discussions. “Since agriculture is an important part of our economy, any discussions on levelling the global market for farm products is of interest to us,” an official from the commerce department said.

In its complaint, Brazil pointed out that while the US had shown on record that its aggregate measurement of support (AMS) was within the permissible limit of $19 billion, it had excluded a number of subsidy payments made to farmers while calculating the figure.

Its claims that its ‘production flexibility contract’ payments conformed to the criteria for decoupled income support which the WTO allows to be excluded from AMS calculation was incorrect, Brazil’s paper said.

Further, claims that payments under the US non-insured crop disaster assistance, crop disaster assistance, emergency feed, livestock indemnity and tree assistance programmes conformed to the criteria for payments for relief from natural disasters were also incorrect, the submission added. Such payments, when added, increases US’ AMS beyond the $19-billion mark, it said.

Brazil also pointed out that export credit guarantees provided by the US government to farmers on more favourable terms than others available in market should qualify as export subsidies. These export subsidies are in excess of its export subsidy reduction commitments for scheduled products, the paper said.

India would like to keenly follow the discussions and then take a call on whether it would like to directly get involved in the issue, the commerce department official said.

India, together with Brazil, is part of the G-20 group of countries which is trying to persuade the US to take on commitments to reduce its farm subsidy levels to about $13-14 billion from the existing $19 billion. US’ refusal to take on substantial subsidy reduction commitments is partly holding up the on-going Doha round of negotiations at the WTO.