New Delhi: The US, EU, Canada, Brazil and New Zealand have raised questions at India’s various farm policies including quantitative restrictions on pulses, sugar subsidies, and export subsidies through its transport and marketing assistance scheme. At a recent meeting at the World Trade Organization (WTO), they also asked New Delhi about the potential impact of its food stocks on the global market and if it is breaching its support limit for other farm goods like it did for rice.
This comes in the wake of India becoming the first country to invoke the peace clause for breaching the subsidy limit for rice for marketing year 2018-19. It informed the WTO in April that the value of its rice production was $43.67 billion in 2018-19 and that it gave subsidies worth $5 billion. The limit is pegged at 10% of the value of food production (called de minimis) in the case of India and other developing countries.
“Many questions were posed to India about its multiple agriculture policies and transparency issues arising from its new domestic support notifications,” said a Geneva-based official.
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