National

Ajit Singh wants farm subsidies to be enhanced

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi May 20. The Union Agriculture Minister, Ajit Singh, has called for retention of farm subsidies or even enhancing them if farmers were to compete in the world market.

Quoting the recently approved U.S. Farm Subsidies Bill, 2002, which has brought under its purview several new commodities for subsidy by the U.S. Government, he said advanced countries appeared legally to be following the WTO norms, but in reality they were subsidising their farm production and exports which did not give a level playing field to developing nations such as India.

Addressing a press conference here today, Mr. Ajit Singh said even though it was agreed at the Doha round of WTO negotiations that developed countries would cut down on subsidies, it had not happened. In 1998, the U.S. had given subsidies to the tune of $ 65 billion and in the new Bill enhanced it by over $ 80 billion over the next 10 years. Twenty-five per cent of the income earned in the farm sector was through export.

Mr. Singh said the new U.S. Bill would further distort the level playing field. It introduces subsidies for peanuts, lentils, chickpea and dairy farming, soyabean, wheat, corn, barley and sorghum and resurrects programmes for honey, wool and mohair. The provisions pave way for 10 per cent of farmers to get 75 per cent of the cash.

"Economists in India should stop harping on farm subsidies. Yes, we must stop wasteful subsidies. But if you ask farmers to compete you have to increase subsidies and enact laws,'' he said. The recent meeting of SAARC Agriculture Ministers in Kathmandu, which he attended, had taken note of such anomalies and decided to frame an action plan before the Rome Summit on Food.

Mr. Singh had recently asked the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to impress upon the Ministry of Environment and Forests to get private importers to declare whether the commodities were genetically modified.

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