At WTO meet, Prabhu seeks cut in large farm subsidies of developed nations

A two-day 'mini-ministerial' meet was organised in Morocco to agree on an agenda for the December summit

Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu, commerce and industry minister, has called for a permanent solution on the issue of public stockholding of foodgrain, at the Ministerial Conference in Argentine this December of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

At the WTO 'mini-ministerial' meet in Morocco ending on Tuesday, the Indian government reiterated its stance saying, issues from the Doha Development Agenda needed to be uniformly reaffirmed.

In his first brush with the WTO system and the 35 trade ministers from key economies, after taking charge as the country's commerce minister last month, Prabhu led discussions on behalf of developing economies. He stressed that older issues based on agriculture should be sorted before member nations move on to newer issues such as a proposed set of global rules for the e-commerce industry.

The WTO had called the two-day Morocco meet to agree on an agenda for the December summit, a senior commerce and industry ministry official said.

Prabhu reiterated that the agreed objectives of the agriculture negotiations in the Doha Round should be respected, besides making a fresh call to avoid further widening of the existing imbalance between developed and developing countries. With over 600 million people dependent on agriculture in India, the government will be pushing the issue.

Prabhu has emphasised that a permanent solution on public stockholding must be a part of the outcomes achieved, saying a solution on this issue would be key in ending hunger and achieving food security, as mandated in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal-II.

Recently, Brazil and the European Union came come together on an offensive against farm subsidies given by India to its farmers. They had targeted all forms of subsidies apart from those under the Minimum Support Price (MSP) scheme and called for a clampdown on export meant for public stockholding.

Developed countries provide huge subsidies to their own farmers, amounting to more than 90 per cent of global entitlements or nearly $160 billion. Pointing this out, India and China have jointly proposed a stop to this at the WTO.

A senior official said WTO chief Roberto Azevedo had privately agreed with India's positions. Both the contentious issues of public stockholding and a special safeguard mechanism in agriculture have not seen much progress at previous ministerial conferences.

Following India's agreement with the US on the issue in 2013, the Bali Ministerial Conference came up with the 'peace clause' that permitted uninterrupted implementation of India's food security programme until a permanent solution was found. This allows India to procure and stock foodgrain for distribution to the poor without being penalised by the WTO members, even if it breaches the 10 per cent subsidy cap prescribed by the multilateral trade body.

The Doha Development Agenda, adopted in 2001 at the fourth ministerial conference, has not seen much progress in the past 16 years.