India underreported rice, wheat price support: US, others to WTO

The US, Australia, Paraguay and Ukraine have raised objections to the market price support given by India to certain agricultural goods in a submission to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

They said India provides market price support for rice and wheat in excess of what it has reported to the global trade body. India’s market price support for rice appears to have been 86% of value of production for 2023-24 while the support for wheat is 69.4% of the production value, they alleged.



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Claiming that India appears to be providing “significant” market price support (MPS) for rice and wheat, both in terms of absolute value and as a percentage of the value of production, the four countries said: “India's notification for the year at issue appear to dramatically under-report the value of India's MPS for rice and wheat.”

They said that India's notification for marketing year 2023-24 showed a value of support of Rs 56,398.4 crore for rice and Rs 2,341.2 crore for wheat as against their own estimate that MPS was Rs 4,04,799 crore for rice and Rs 1,95,791.1 crore for wheat.

“The cosponsors said that they look forward to future discussion of the significance of India’s support for rice and wheat for both its domestic market and world markets,” said an official.

The four WTO members have estimated MPS based on all eligible production, as opposed to just that portion of production actually procured by government entities in India.


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India has been invoking the peace clause for exceeding the 10% ceiling on support it offers to its rice farmers since 2020. The peace clause protects India’s food procurement programmes against action from WTO members in case the subsidy ceilings (de minimis)—10% of value of food production in the case of India and other developing countries—are breached.

The country ensures food security through the minimum support price programme, public distribution system and National Food Security Act, 2013. The purpose and focus of the programme is to meet the food security needs of the country.