Farmers protest to Quit World Trade Organisation

Following the Farmers Delhi Chalo Protest at Punjab-Haryana border, Farmers' leaders and Union ministers met on 8, 12, 16, and 18 February but the dialogue remained inconclusive. Meanwhile, the farmers protesting at Haryana border faces ruthless attack by Haryana Police through rubber bullets and tear gas. Earlier this week, Haryana police open fired at a 21 year old Punjab farmer named Shubhkaran killing him. Farmers' union are demanding that wanted an proper judicial enquiry into the incident. They demand justice for the young farmer who was murder by Haryana police. Meanwhile, both mainstream and social media platforms like X has been censoring the posts about farmers protest as per the Union governments order.

On average for past 30 years, for every hour a farmer kills himself

One of the key demands of the protesting farmers is that "India should Quit World Trade Organisation(WTO)". On February 26th, the protesting farmers have vowed to observe "Quit WTO day" on the same day 13th Ministerial Conference of WTO (MC 13) is happening.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade and access for free markets. The WTO is the world's largest international economic organisation, with 164 member countries representing over 98% of global trade and GDP.

In WTO, there will be multiple negotiations, treaties, bilateral and multilateral agreements signed between between member countries. This is done basically to strengthen and develop- Globalisation, free trade(import and export) and free markets. India has been a member of the WTO since its inception in 1995

The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) is an international treaty of the World Trade Organization. It was negotiated and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO on January 1, 1995. The Agreement on Agriculture primarily focuses on reducing the agricultural subsidies given to the farmers by any governments. India has ratified the Agreement on Agriculture naturally being a member of WTO.

WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture classifies an important of subsidies called Aggregate Measurement of Support (AMS). The AMS is annual level of subsidies provided for an agricultural product, by the government, in favour of the farmers for their agricultural products. As per the WTO norms, the AMS can be given up to 10% of a country’s agricultural GDP in the case of developing countries like India.

In the month of April 2020, India informed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that the value of India’s rice production was $ 43.67 billion in 2018-19 and India had given subsidies worth $ 5 billion. This made India to cross WHO's 10% subsidy ceiling. 

European Union, United States of America, Japan, Canada and some countries of WTO came down heavily on India and harshly criticised Indian Government for crossing the WTO's 10% subsidy ceiling. India was literally cornered in WTO subsidising its own farmers products for its own food security. 

These kinds of incident has happened many times in past at WTO. But, this assumes special significance now, as farmers are holding protests seeking a law to guarantee minimum support price (MSP) for all crops. WTO seems to be standing in between protesting farmers and India Government in providing MSP, since it will breach the 10% subsidy ceiling of WTO. 

On the other hand, Indian government provides 5-kg of free food grains per month to around 80 crore poor people. India has been ranked 111 out of 125 countries surveyed for hunger. Read about India's acute hunger crisis here. In these difficult times, India is planning to increase the distribution of subsidised food through Public Distribution system (PDS) to fight its malnutrition and hunger. But again, WTO's interests' stands against it. WTO's 10% subsidy ceiling is against India's PDS which inturn threatens India's food security.

Precisely, WTO is not only pushing Indian government against its own farmers, who constitute 50% of India's population, but also against the poor people of India who depend on Public distributions schemes(PDS) to escape the hunger trap. 

Protesting farmers feel pathetic about Indian government being at the mercy of developed countries under WTO and demand India to exit WTO to safeguard its own sovereignty and food security.






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Reference:


https://thewire.in/agriculture/renegotiate-wto-mandate-agriculture-sector-developing-countries

https://indianexpress.com/article/business/permanent-solution-for-public-stockholding-top-priority-for-india-9116333/


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