Will we survive by ourselves?

The Doha round of trade talks at the WTO, which have been going on for over a decade, is going nowhere in Bali in Indonesia as India refuses to discuss its Food Security Bill. " For India, food security is non-negotiable," said our most revered Commerce Minister, Anand Sharma. " Public procurement at administered prices is often the only method of supporting farmers and building stocks for food security in developing countries. Need of public stockholding of food grains to ensure food security must be respected," he thundered. Sadly, we cannot believe his pious words because we are not convinced that the bill was passed to help poor people. We are of the opinion that the bill is an extremely cynical ploy by the Congress to win next year's general elections and will do genuine harm to the economy and to the poor. By paying a Minimum Support Price for food grains the cost of food goes up. A higher price encourages farmers to divert farmland to grain production creating shortage of fruits and vegetables as shown by the recent food inflation. Hoarding of grains by the government causes artificial shortage and, since India lacks adequate storage capacity, vast amounts of food are wasted. India is not the only country which pays subsidies to its farmers. The US pays billions of dollars of subsidies to farmers, some of whom are billionaires while the butter mountains and wine lakes of the European Union are legendary. Under WTO rules no country is allowed to pay subsidy of more than 10% of output and the fear is what the Congress will give away on other aspects of trade to protect the Food Security Bill. Memories of Sharm-al-Sheikh linger. Our talks with Asean for a Free Trade Agreement have fallen through recently. A trade agreement between India and the European Union is going nowhere after years of negotiations. The EU wants a reduction in duties on cars and wine, which means alcoholic drinks, which India is not prepared to concede because the government needs punishing taxes to pay for wasteful social programs. Meanwhile Europe and the US are pushing ahead with negotiations to conclude a transatlantic trade deal that would create the biggest trade block ever. The WTO will become redundant and they will dictate trade terms to others. We are not in Asean, Apec, Nafta and will not be in TTIP. On our own we will be crushed by the others. All to win lousy elections.