The Key Challenge In Hongkong Ministerial Meeting

A Note submitted by the All India Kisan Sabha, for “Stakeholder Consultation Workshop on Hongkong Ministerial Meeting” Organised by the UNCTAD is reproduced below. It was submitted by AIKS joint secretary N K Shukla.

THE Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) has already proved to be the most troublesome outcome of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In 1994, the Government of India signed the Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) as a part of the WTO package with the understanding that it would give a big boost to agricultural exports. Its understanding was that as the governments of the EU and US are committing in the AOA to substantively reduce their own subsidies and tariffs the losses accruing to the country due to the TRIPS Agreement would be not only fully offset but also improving in a very big way the fortunes of Indian agriculture for the better.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE AOA

Experience of the implementation of AOA over the period of last ten years has clearly shown that not only the EU and US have successfully enhanced the subsidies to their own respective agricultural sectors but also they have been able to also maintain and raise the peak tariffs on the products of export interest to developing countries including India without any difficulty. Most of the agricultural commodities experienced almost a continuous trend of price decline during the period, which completely dashed the hopes of those who were dreaming of exporting agricultural commodities in a big way. During this period when even India did export wheat it was exported at the prices that were lower than even the issue price of food grains from the public distribution system. Domestic prices at which farmers have had to sell their agricultural output during the period were even lower than the prevailing international prices.

The adverse impacts of growing imports on the incomes and livelihoods of farmers and agricultural labour were acute in all those regions where coffee, tea, spices, oilseeds, fruits, milk and cotton are grown. Losses of the Indian peasantry and agricultural labour were severe as a whole due to the rising input prices and withdrawal of the support for domestic procurement by the Central and State governments for the commodities like cotton and even food grains lost heavily. There is no doubt that the Indian peasantry is today far more vulnerable than before. This vulnerability is clearly evident from the growth in suicides by the farmers and rising unemployment among agricultural workers. Growing migration of rural workers and tribal population to urban areas, increased hunger and malnutrition among the rural populace and many other such signs of distress confirm that the Indian agriculture is facing a serious crisis and by practising the AOA based policy regime its misery is becoming now completely unbearable for the Indian peasantry and agricultural labour.

In the view of Kisan Sabha, food sovereignty was sacrificed when the Government of India agreed to sign the provision of compulsory minimum import of at least three percent of the total consumption at the level of a very low tariff. Food security is also at stake because the AOA is designed to promote a new international division of labour aiming to push the Indian agriculture in the direction of horticulture, floriculture and non-cereals. India has lost the ability to protect the peasantry from the adverse impacts of the vagaries of the world market system. India cannot protect the peasantry with the institutionalisation of a regime of protection through tariffs only. The threat of vulnerability to imports is looming over the heads of Indian peasantry. We believe that by agreeing to give up the right of import control the government is continuing to compromise on the inter-related issues of the vulnerability of peasant livelihoods, food sovereignty and food security for India. 

In the view of Kisan Sabha, the right to impose import controls using the instrument of quantitative restrictions (QRs) is still the only way to exercise protection at the borders in the case of agriculture. It is an alienable right of the Member Countries in the WTO and must be restored in the case of the Agreement on Agriculture. The Government of India should also get the group of G-20 to champion this proposal in the AOA negotiations. The proposal of restoration of QRs is currently not a part of the proposals submitted to the WTO by India. It is our demand that in the Hong Kong Ministerial the Government of India should not agree to the implementation of any kind of tariff reduction as long as the EU and the US do not agree to reintroduce the instrumentality of QRs into the agreement.

CHIEF PREMISE OF THE AOA

The underlying chief premise of this Agreement is that agriculture should be treated like any other good and commodity, subjected to global market forces and covered by the same sorts of trade rules like tin ore, tires and automobiles. The preamble to the Agreement on Agriculture states that its intent is to “establish a pure market based agricultural system” through the reduction of subsidies for domestic agriculture as well as export oriented agriculture. The longer-term objective of AOA is to open up the agricultural markets so that the stage could be set for the domination of agri-businesses in the entire system of global trade. But food like water is not like any other product, it is like water essential to life and agriculture a sector, which forms the basis of the livelihood security of a majority of the people in the developing countries.

The future of Indian agriculture cannot be safeguarded by the paradigm of trade, which governs the AOA today to promote the domination of corporate agro-food relations over the sector agriculture and push the countries towards the adoption of an unsustainable regime of agriculture and the development of chains of unhealthy food, the sure recipes for disasters and only disasters. Of course, they must be also asked to cap their green and blue box subsidies within a period of three years and remove the peak tariffs used against the commodities and products of export interest to the developing countries. Needless to say, no Member Country can be asked to give up the right to subsidise appropriately its economic and technological activities, but what is really important that the country gets back its right to protect itself against the unfair regime of monopoly power and subsidies under practice in the case of agricultural trade by the developed countries.

CONTROL THROUGH THE TRIPS

As already suggested, the future of Indian agriculture is intimately linked to who is going to control the agro-food chain and the system of technology generation for agricultural inputs including seeds. This control is going to be exercised in the case of agricultural technology through the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Attention needs to be also given to the challenge of TRIPS negotiations. The Indian agriculture stands today vulnerable to the threat of patent monopolies through the introduction of patents. The subject matters relating to agriculture were hitherto not to be given patents. The Patent Act, 1970 excluded statutorily the methods of agriculture and horticulture from the scope of patentability. Under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of the World Trade Organization, most developing countries are now required to also cover in the scope of their own patent system the subject matters connected with biotechnology including plant transformation methods, bio fertilisers & biological control based plant protection and other such related technology areas.

PRE-TRIPS PERIOD

In the pre-TRIPS period, our agricultural research sector was able to achieve significant breakthroughs in plant breeding, which resulted in increasing food production during the time of the green revolution. This was possible only because there was no intellectual property regime and certainly no patents on genes and plant transformation methods. The success of the green revolution was based on international collaboration that included the free exchange of genetic diversity and information. At the time of the green revolution India did not even have a system of plant breeder rights in place for which India has also now opted. Farmers themselves have accumulated most of the ‘added value’ present in modern crops over the centuries as they selected their best plants as the source of seed for the next planting. These 'land races' have traditionally been provided free of charge by developing countries to the world community. Amongst the agencies involved, the various Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centres add value through selective breeding, and the superior varieties they generate are widely distributed without charge, thereby benefiting both developing and developed countries.

But during the gene revolution, the situation has changed. Plant transformation is covered now by the strong system of industrial patents, which the developing world is too required to accept in respect of biotechnology patenting. Through the introduction of Article 27.3 (b) the Agreement on TRIPS has been able to get the government of India to already fall in line with the system of industrial patents to protect biotechnology including plant transformation methods and plant varieties. Much has been written over the last few years on the potentially deleterious effects of plant IPR on the freedom and commercial opportunities of farmers in developing countries. Patents on biotechnology methods and materials, and even on plant varieties, are thus complicating and undermining the collaborative relationships between international institutions. Public-sector research institutions in industrialized countries no longer fully share new information and technology. Rather, they are inclined to patent and license and have special offices charged with maximizing their financial return from licensing. Commercial production of any genetically modified (GM) crop variety requires dozens of patents and licences. It is only the big companies that can afford to put together the IPR portfolios necessary to give them the freedom to operate. Furthermore, all of this 'ownership' of plant genetic resources is causing developing countries to rethink their policies concerning access to the national biodiversity they control and new restrictions are likely. The complexity of trade between any two countries increases with the sum of the patents in the countries involved.

Biotechnology patenting related aspects of TRIPS obligation are covered under Article 27.3 (b) providing for patenting of micro organisms, non-biological and microbiological processes. But there was a window of opportunity available to the developing countries to press for a major revision in this regard as a part of the mandated review. The review of this provision was mandated to start from 1999. Developing countries were very keen to see progress on this matter as a part of the Doha Round Negotiations. The Africa Group Countries are of the view to completely eliminate patents on life forms. India has taken a stand that the Member Countries should have freedom to institutionalise their own regime of patenting in the area of biotechnology. But in this area developed countries have been successfully stalling negotiations because of sufficient pressure not being put by the developing countries governments. With a view to defend the longer term interests of the Indian agriculture, to prevent it from going into hands of corporations like Monsanto and Sygenta, we would like to press the Government of India to pressurise the WTO to take this matter up on priority. In the view of Kisan Sabha, India should strongly argue that in the exclusion of patents over life forms related subject matters it is also supportive of the position taken by the Africa Group.

With regard to the protection of interests of the Indian peasantry in the WTO, in addition to the above-discussed two specific issues, we also want to raise the issue of compromise being contemplated by the government to trade off the interests of Indian agriculture in order to obtain concessions from the developed world in respect of services negotiations. We are very clear that the interests of Indian peasantry cannot be sacrificed for any type of concession. Thus, the government should not be even thinking of making a compromise in respect of agriculture for the benefit of a small number of visas that it may get from the developed world through the negotiations on trade in services.

In particular, the government needs to be reminded of the strength of Indian peasantry. They played a major role in ousting the government of Narsimha Rao for introducing economic reforms that were responsible for the ruin of their livelihoods. Similarly, they also voted out the NDA government, which had agreed to remove the quantitative restrictions on several agricultural and industrial products in the years of 2002 and 2003 to obtain concessions from the Clinton Administration. We would like the UPA government to keep this lesson in mind when its delegation negotiates this time in the WTO.

THE KEY CHALLENGE

In the Hong Kong Ministerial, the key challenge is to therefore get the developing countries to come together on the one hand, on the issue of restoration of the right to impose quantitative restrictions to protect the livelihoods of world peasantry and on the other hand, on the issue of how to protect the sector of agriculture from being dominated by the patent monopolies, using which the agribusiness is going to establish its control over the agro-food chains.

In the way of concluding this intervention, we also want to stress our following demands- (A) The Government of India must not compromise on the interest of Indian agriculture and must bring out a white paper before the people of the country on its stand being taken at the Hong Kong meeting. (B) Any decision being taken in this regard must be discussed and ratified by the Indian Parliament. (C) Agriculture being the state subject in our country, no final commitment be made without the consent of state legislatures.

IMPORTANT NOTE

AIKS is participating in the following programmes:

1. WTO Wirodhi Joint Convention being organised on December 3, 2005 at Constitution Club, New Delhi at 2.30 pm.

2. Joint protest action on December 13, 2005 throughout the country, to warn the central government against any compromise on the interest of Indian agriculture at Hong Kong.