Now, scientific community raise the WTO scare

“The external threats include the unequal trade bargain inherent in the WTO agreement of 1994,” he told the Congress which has taken “Food, Nutrition and Environmental Security” as the theme this year.

The clear message from the scientists was “ensuring food security alone is not enough but also livelihood security”. And the government was told to lobby for support for the effort to foster balance between production and likely market demand under the “blue box” arrangement under the WTO.

Swaminathan also talked of the “livelihood box” in the WTO agreement under which developing countries can impose quantitative restrictions on the import of agricultural commodities when such imports could destroy livelihood opportunities for resource-poor farming families and landless farm labour.

“The livelihood box may be necessary for 10 to 15 years until effective post-harvest infrastructure, facilities for scientific land use planning and effective agro-processing and agribusiness enterprises are developed,” he said.

In fact, R.S. Paroda, president of the Congress, set the tone on the opening day itself when he spoke of the alarming situation that the Indian farmer finds himself in. “In my view, the situation of surpluses and low commodity prices in recent years have somehow lulled us into a false of security — a belief that the agricultural revolution has been won and will continue to be with us. Such a complacency could be catastrophic,” he said.

He painted a bleak picture for agriculture in the context of GATT. “The country has been placed in a piquant situation — with a feeling of uncertainty and despondence among Indian farmers who feel threatened by the unstable economic environment following liberalisation,” he said. His contention was that the last few years had dispelled any expectation that liberalisation of trade would propel farm export and positively impact farm income.

Swaminathan this evening fine-tuned these concerns when he asked the government to put in print the post-1994 experience vis-a-vis the farm sector. “What is the stand government plans to take in the re-negotiation of the World Trade agreement in agriculture?” he asked. The answers, according to him, would help dispel misgivings and reassure farmers that their “livelihood options are not being mortgaged without adequate consultations and consensus”.

It was not the scientists alone who seemed worried but the indigenous farm industry as well. Anuradha J. Desai of a leading poultry firm dismissed as unrealistic the pro-free trade lobby’s argument that Indian farmers could benefit from exports as much as their foreign counterparts. “We are often told that if the US exports chicken breasts we can dump chicken legs there. This is all rhetoric,” she remarked.

The other key concern that emanated from the Congress was that ensuring foodsecurity was fine but it would be irrelevant if people were not given the access to food. Paroda brought out the paradox when he said India had a record harvest of 206 million tonnes last year with the buffer stock figure registering an all-time high of 40 million tonnes. Yet, about 250 million people in the country were deprived of two square meals a day.