Exclude agriculture from India-US trade deal: Farm bodies

Farmers body Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements (ICCFM) Tuesday urged the government not to include any aspects of agriculture including dairy in the proposed bilateral trade agreement between India and the US as it would have implications on these sectors.

In a communication to commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal, it said the Indian government must stop any trade deal with the US that Is detrimental to farmers’ interests.

”We urgently request that you exclude all aspects of agriculture from this trade deal to protect the interests of Indian farmers, ensuring our food sovereignty and security, and safeguarding the vitality of our rural economy,” it said as the potential consequences of a trade agreement that grants duty-free access to the US agricultural products are “deeply alarming”.

It said that in agriculture, the US has a “significant surplus that they may seek to offload onto markets like India”.

Noting that the US is world's largest agricultural subsidizers, with the 2024 Farm Bill allocating a staggering $1.5 trillion, it said: “Allowing such heavily subsidized US imports into India would undermine our longstanding position at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against these very subsidies”

Moreover, import of any such transgenic products into India, be it corn, soy, canola, cotton, or apples, are “unacceptable to us due to concerns about biosafety, especially regarding herbicide-tolerant and glyphosate-tolerant crops”.

“We urge you not to proceed with any trade deal with the USA that involves agriculture and threatens our farm livelihoods, specifically requesting that you refrain from signing any Free Trade Agreement in this sector,” it added.

Last week, the Bhartiya Kisan Union said If Indian markets are opened for capitalism and big corporate based agriculture system like America, “then the farmers of the country will be forced to kneel before big corporate companies, also this step is a direct attack on the objective of self-reliant India”.

“Any international agreement without consulting Indian farmers and livestock farmers will be a double blow to the rural class which is already doing loss making farming, because America provides more subsidy to its farmers than India, which would be far-fetched to even imagine,” it said.

“The farmer of India will be reduced to a laborer on his own land. To protect the farmers and livestock farmers of the country, the protectionist policy should be given priority by the government,” BKU had said.