The Hindu Business Line : Call to delink farm, farm products from WTO ambit

The Confederation of NGOs of Rural India (CNRI) has urged the Commerce Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, to examine the question of de-linking agriculture and agricultural products as a whole from the ambit of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in order to secure and safeguard the livelihood concerns of millions of farmers in India as also in other developing countries.

In a memorandum submitted to him on the crucial role he played in the recent Geneva Mini Ministerial to highlight the basic concerns of farmers, the CNRI, the apex organisation representing 2,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in India, said the issue assumes importance in the wake of having gained nothing "in our untiring efforts to achieve our objectives. It said if any, the unending trade-distorting farm subsidies of the developed world have pushed our terms of agricultural trade to extremely unacceptable levels the world over.''

The memorandum, signed by its Chairman, Dr Mohan Dharia, former Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Ms Nirmala Deshpande, M.P. and chief patron of CNRI, and Mr L.V. Saptharishi, Co-Chairman and a retired civil servant, proposed that there should be a fresh round of initiatives under the auspices of the United Nations and not under the WTO.