Workshop%20on%20Farmers%20Rights%20to%20Livelihood

1
Workshop on Farmers Rights to Livelihood

• CUTS International
• Kolkata
• Sanjeev Chopra
• Secretary, Agriculture
• West Bengal

2
National Foreign Trade Policy 2004-08 and
Farmers Rights in the context of agribusiness
and commercialization

• Explanation of Key Terms
• What is Trade Policy ?
• Fiscal , monetary and Institutional support to
  certain sectors
• Maximizing the competitive advantages of a
  nation
• National Foreign Trade Policy 2004-09
  Implications for agriculture

3
Foreign Trade Policy for Agriculture

• India and the WTO
• Indias options at AoA
• Negotiating Strategy was to prevent imports
• India never sought to develop and establish a
  market for its agri exports

4
APEDA

• Ministry of Commerce realized the potential of
  agri exports
• Sixty AEZs established - process gained
  momentum from 2001-02
• Over sixty export zones in the country
• Competitive advantage of a particular
  crop/commodity

5
Foreign trade Policy 04-09

• New sectoral initiatives
• Agriculture and Village Industries
• Vishesh Krishi and Gram Udyog Yojana
• earmarking of funds under ASIDE for AEZ

6
Vishesh Krishi Gram Udyog Yojana

• Objective agri/minor forest/forest/gram Udyog
  products along with their value added variants
• To ease high transport costs and infra
  bottlenecks,5 of the FOB value of exports (in
  forex) will be granted to the exporters

7
Farmers Rights

• Peasants and Farmers
• Farmers Rights vs. Rights of the State
• Right to collect revenue
• Right to determine what to grow
• Right to trade?
• Right to propagate seeds?

8
Agribusiness

• Agriculture and Agribusiness
• Value Addition
• Capital and Skill intensive
• Market orientation

9
Commercialization

• Food security at household, community and
  village levels
• Food security at regional and national levels
• Shift from consumption crops to commercially
  profitable species
• Differential impact on different income brackets

10
Impact of AoA

• On the middle class consumers
• On producers
• On resource poor consumers
• Per capita availability of food grains is
  actually declining

11
Who is responsible?

• Have farmers ever driven government policy?
• Have farmers fought for their own rights or the
  rights of society and community
• Can the entire rural population be classified
  under the broad head of farmers?

12
Contract farming ???

• Contracts presuppose equality and options
• Negotiating Power
• Negotiation Skills
• Farmers Organizations Co-operatives
• Is a symbiotic relationship possible

13
Prior Informed Consent

• Information about the present
• Information about the future
• Discussion about implications
• Policy Formulation Stakeholders involvement
• GM crops introduction regarding
• The matrix of risks and profits

14
In conclusion

• Internal consultations were inadequate before
  the accession to WTO
• Foreign Trade policies are NOT determined by
  farmers, but by Economic Ministries
• Individual Farmers would find it extremely
  difficult to gain any foothold in the
  negotiations
• Strengthening Farmers co-operatives or interest
  groups is perhaps the only way to get the
  farmers a better deal, both from corporates and
  policy makers
• The current initiative is a welcome first step!