Should India give up Food Security in favour of WTO’s trade facilitation?
Should India give up Food Security in favour of WTO’s trade facilitation?
India is home to 1.25 billion people. To feed this huge population India unfolded its ambitious National Food Security Mission which evoked strong protests from developed countries. These countries have argued that India is contravening WTO’s rule which states that public holding should not exceed 10% of the value of food grains produced. In response to this India vetoed the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), which aims at simplifying global customs rule in Bali this year. India clearly stated that it will not ratify TFA until a permanent solution to its public stock holding issue has not been made. Now, should India ratify TFA and give up food security?
Yes:
-Western countries have assured India to find out a mutually agreeable solution to this problem on priority basis once India ratifies TFA agreement.
-India’s stand has cornered it in WTO; even developing countries have sided against India. So, India should support the view hold by majority.
-Simplification of trade rules at global level will help India too as India is exporting food grains to many countries especially in Africa.
-Failure to TFA due to India’s stance can irk many countries especially developed nations. They might retaliate by delaying the permanent solution to India’s problem.
- India might loose business opportunities with many foreign countries due to its tough stand.
No:
-The public holding limit is calculated on the base price of 1986-88. This base year has become irrelevant owing to inflation.
-For India, public holding of food grains is a very important issue owing to its huge population .So India cannot comprise on it at any cost.
-Once India decreases its food grains stocks, it has to import from developed countries. Also the food grains dumping by developed countries will destroy India’s domestic market.
-Developed countries justify the subsidies to their farmers which are way ahead of what India is providing. So why can’t India do the same?
-In India large part of population is poor and don’t have the power even to buy the minimum food requirement. Under such circumstances it is the duty of Indian government to feed its population.
Conclusion:
These arguments suggest that issue of food security is very crucial to India. Though India seems to be violating WTO’s rule but since these rules have lost their relevance in current scenario India’s stance doesn’t need any justification. India cannot justify its failure in feeding its population, which is more important than sticking to WTO’s stand. Government is reaching to different countries and platforms to justify India’s stance and it seems to be working as some countries have now supported India which was not the case earlier. So, India should not compromise its food security at any cost.
Discussion
- RE: Should India give up Food Security in favour of WTO’s trade facilitation? -Deepa Kaushik (10/06/14)
- What the Government need to concentrate upon first – is that the business relation on the international front, or its own citizens? This is a very serious matter that calls up for a discussion. Our nation is not only having a huge population, but we are also facing the internal troubles like black-marketing, corruption etc. With all these concerns, our government has done well so far with respect to its concentration on its citizens and their well-being.
Ratifying the RTF could be a move of pride just to please the world and the co-business countries and groups and portray the exportation for the country and the income thereby. But, truly analysing the things, the gain would be much less as compared to the loss with respect to the health and support of the citizens. The food security should be calculated as per the population and per unit production of the country, not by merely placing some standards and provide a percentage as deadline for the whole lot. Placing a threshold percentile would be definitely good for a small country with less population and a big production output. Anyhow, such a factor could be no more than a burden for a country like India.
We cannot change our stand by looking through the countries against our notion, as they are not the ones who are facing similar issues in their country. Even other developing countries does not necessarily be facing such a huge population to feed, many of whom are unable to go for costly purchases of food grains. Giving up food security means we will be exporting a lot, or on other terms we would require to import the food grains to meet our demands. The other countries may be dumping up the stock without much use for the same which would be a urgent requirement for us. Paying up an increased amount for something we are cultivating is not an acceptable point; especially when we know that it will result in inflation and some of our co-brethren wouldn’t be able to purchase at such a cost.
Anything that is correct would succeed ultimately. We need to remember he fact that “No pain, No gain”. We need to struggle and put our point in front of the world and succeed by keeping up our notion. It would be an utter foolishness to give up Food Security in favour of WTO’s trade facilitation.
