India Resolute On Protecting Farmers, Fisherfolk Interests At WTO 12th Ministerial Conference

The 12th WTO Ministerial Conference begins Sunday in Geneva, after a gap of almost five years. The position of India, which will be represented by a delegation led by Union Minister Piyush Goyal, on three key areas — agriculture , fisheries, and e-commerce, is very clear, and focused on protecting small farmers and fisherfolk, and the country’s interests, three people familiar with matter said ahead of the 12th ministerial of WTO.

India will push for a new method to calculate food subsidies for a permanent solution to its public grain stockpiling programme, one of the prickliest issues at the ministerial conference starting June 12 in Geneva.

According to current WTO rules, a member country’s food subsidy is capped at a ceiling of 10% of the value of production based on 1986-88 prices. India will propose amendments in the formula to calculate the food subsidy limit with support from G33, which, despite its name, is a grouping of 48 nations.

Last year, India invoked a so-called peace clause it enjoys (for third time in case of rice) at the WTO for exceeding the 10% ceiling on the subsidy it offers to its farmers, critical for the country’s food security.

India’s stand has been that public stockpiling is critical for its food security and total subsidies given by the US and EU far exceed those offered by India, based on India’s updated calculations.

One of the proposals India is likely to advance is to recommend a re-calibration of the “external reference price”, adjusting it for current global inflation rates, to arrive at the minimum support price ceiling of 10% of the total value of crop production.

Another critical stand of India will be to include all subsidized food programmes introduced after 2013, which are currently not recognized by the WTO, as well as food aid given under the World Food Programme.

“India’s proposal is to update the outdated 1986-88 external reference price and base it on current global prices,” a government official said, asking not to be named.

Further, India will push for subsidy calculations to be based on “actual procurement and not all eligible production”, the official said. This shift will benefit all developing countries who have public stock-holding programmes. “Our proposal is to calculate subsidies with a more relevant method that is fair to all countries.”

According to the existing method of calculations, India has told the WTO that the value of rice subsidies in 2019-20 was $6.31 billion, which is 13.7% of its value of rice production in that year, which stood at $46.07 billion.