"Import Of Food, Or Of Unemployment?"

Will food imports hit our economy?
Food imports are of two kinds - raw and processed. Imports of raw foodgrain, pulses, fish and milk will badly hit farmers, fishermen. The cost of producing food in India, despite low labour costs, is rising steadily. In the West, automation is pushing costs down. We produce 75,000 million tonnes of milk - it forms the livelihood for 80 million women owning just one buffalo or two cows. For the same output, the West deploys 100,000 people. Our fishermen don’t own cold-storage chains; they’ve to sell their catch the same day. Processed food imports will ruin micro enterprises.

Food security is linked to national sovereignty. You can’t have Pokhran and also let people starve. That’s what’s happening in North Korea. We must make our choices now. If not, farmers will move to urban slums, impoverishment will spread and inequity will grow at an incredible speed.

Why do imports always dominate wto talks?
The wto talks are conducted on the basic premise that trade - and not aid - shall be the vehicle of prosperity. The last decade saw gradual erosion of aid. On one hand, there are these trade-related talks, on the other there are UN-sponsored summits to bridge the rich-poor gap. Poverty, inequity have increased - globalisation is partly responsible for this.

How is poverty and the global trade regime related?
The Western concept of trade is "survival of the fittest". If there were a level playing field, there would be no problem in this. In agriculture, it’s heavily loaded in favour of the West. The level of subsidies for the farm sector there is very high. Investment in post-harvest technologies and methods, including cold-storage chains and automation, is higher than the gdps of many developing nations. The order of subsidised investment in farm infrastructure is that for every one dollar invested by a country like India, the investment in the developed world is about $100,000.

But won’t free trade lower costs and make things more accessible...
Food security isn’t just about availability. Food should also be accessible to all. If we resort to large-scale imports, all urban department stores will be stocked up. But the rural poor won’t have any money to buy them. Their survival as food producers would stand denied.

What must India do to tackle this?
India should learn to deploy the West’s vocabulary more creatively. Under the wto, any nation can now impose non-tariff barriers on two grounds - environmental security and livelihood security. We must link food security to livelihood security. If trade and not aid is the route to prosperity, we must tell the West that only by protecting our micro enterprises can we ensure poverty eradication. In the West, all the leaders talk only about employment. Why shouldn’t we?