'WTO terms, a blow to Indian farmers'

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, AUG. 14. The Madhya Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister, Mr. Subhash Yadav, is of the firm view that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) obligations will leave a disastrous impact on Indian agriculture.

Talking to ``The Hindu,'' Mr. Subhash Yadav said that Indian agriculture is presently in a `fix' due to the WTO obligations that are distorting the age-old agrarian fabric of this country. The Indian agriculture is traditional by nature and is largely operated by small and marginal farmers, who are vastly threatened by the globalisation of economy, he said.

Despite rise in agricultural production, the farmers are not getting remunerative prices for their produce and the situation has been aggravated in some cases where the prices have gone below the cost of production leading to debt burden on the farmers. If this situation continues, the small farmers will be wiped out, he asserted.

Mr. Yadav said that cheap products have flooded the domestic market so that what is produced by the domestic farmers cannot compete with the subsidised agricultural produce from the foreign countries. He alleged that the Government of India, under pressure from WTO, is preparing grounds for reducing farm subsidy.

Mr. Yadav said the presence of the global farm sector in the domestic market means that the Indian farmers would one day be driven out as they would not be able to compete with the highly subsidised imported agricultural products. Most farmers would be forced to abandon agriculture due to this unequal competition.

With the decline in the infrastructural investment by the State and withdrawal of various types of domestic incentives and excessive dumping of imported farm produce, there is every danger of our agriculture sector shrinking further thereby aggravating the problem of poverty and unemployment.

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