India will not compromise on food security: Anand Sharma

NEW DELHI: India has called for a “fair balance” at the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting, saying it will not accept an “interim solution” if it does not protect its marginal and resourcepoor farmers. “We can no longer allow the interests of our farmers to be compromised at the altar of mercantilist ambitions of the rich... It is, therefore, difficult for us to accept an interim solution as it has been currently designed,” commerce & industry minister Anand Sharma said in a statement ahead of the WTO ministerial beginning Tuesday in Bali.

The minister said there was national consensus in India and political unanimity on providing food security to the poor. “Food security must be protected as it is not only a sensitive issue for India but also a critical social imperative,” Sharma said on Monday at a meeting of G-33, a grouping of developing nations, He said India, as a responsible nation, is committed to a constructive engagement of finding a lasting solution but till such time it is reached, an interim solution that safeguards interests of developing countries should be put in place. Coming down heavily on developed countries, the minister said while developing countries had shown a spirit of cooperation and pragmatism in the negotiations in Geneva over the last several months, the same spirit had been “sadly missing” in the positions of some of the members from the developed world.

“We cannot continue to have rhetoric of development agenda without even a reasonable attempt to address the issues, which are of primary concern to developing economies,” Sharma said. Stressing that procurement and public stockholding for food security are invaluable instruments used by developing countries to secure interests of the poor, the minister pitched for updating WTO rules under the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) to rectify inherent flaws and help developing countries in carrying out such legitimate operations without defaulting on their commitments.
“The G-33 proposal on food security aims to address the problems faced by developing countries due to outdated WTO rules, which base agriculture subsidy calculation on external reference prices of 1986-88, even as global food prices have increased manifold during this period. It is surely reasonable that we should not be asked to peg farm support calculations on prices which were prevailing 30 years ago,” he said. He also favoured a permanent solution to the developing countries’ food security proposal at WTO to protect the interests of the marginal and resource-poor farmers. He said it will be difficult for India to accept an interim solution to the G-33 proposal in the current form, which is a temporary four-year respite from being challenged in WTO, on breaching the acceptable subsidy limits.

The G-33 meeting was chaired by Indonesia’s minister of trade Gita Wirjawan. She said the G-33 wanted food security to be agreed upon. “This proposal is important considering the volatility of world’s food prices, which is continuously increasing,” she added.