‘WTO should have clauses to bail out farm sector’

Former chairman of the commission for agricultural costs and prices, Prof. Abhijit Sen said that India in the next WTO review meeting on Agreements in Agriculture should demand inclusion of a provision for contingency measures for bailing out the farm sector in the event of any natural calamity or wild fluctuations in global prices.

Addressing a seminar on ‘WTO Negotiations on Agriculture,’ organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Friday, Dr Sen said that Indian agriculture was largely dependent on the vagaries of nature, be it drought or floods or cyclones. It is also at times exposed to wild fluctuations in global prices. In such circumstances, developing nations should be allowed to extend all possible assistance to farm sector. This would be an important safeguard for agriculture, he added.

Dr Sen said that India should insist on a variable tariff regime and should not support US formula of converting the currently applied tariff rates into bound tariff rates. He said that the countries should be allowed to fix any tariff rates within WTO-bound rates. He, however, agreed that in some commodities the bound rates were much higher and in some other cases they were much lower. Therefore, there was a need for rationalisation of bound rates.

He said India must be careful in striking a right balance while demanding market access in the developed world and asking them to reduce their level of domestic support.