Caution against indiscriminate freeing of farm imports

[Ulhas Joglekar]

Financial Daily
from THE HINDU group of publications
Sunday, November14,1999
Caution against indiscriminate freeing of farm imports
Our Bureau
NEW DELHI, Nov. 13
DR. M.S. Swaminathan, agriculture scientist, has warned against
indiscriminate liberalisation of farm imports.
``We have to bear in mind the fact that importing food in a predominantly
agricultural economy is importing unemployment and social sustainability is
as important as environmental sustainability,'' he said at a talk on
`Agriculture policy in the first 10 years of the next millennium', organised
by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here.
According to Dr. Swaminathan, the Government should be ``very careful'' with
regard to import policy for agricultural commodities and any decision on
import liberalisation should be accompanied by a `livelihood impact policy
statement' pertaining to the population dependent on the particular
commodity.
``Putting milk powder imports at zero duty on the open general licence (OGL)
could set a very dangerous trend, especially when Europe and other advanced
nations are now saddled with rivers of milk and mountains of butter. The
World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement gives enough scope for various
non-tariff barriers keeping in view food security concerns and we should use
them for our negotiations,'' he said.
While defending a `Swadeshi approach' towards agriculture, Dr. Swaminathan
clarified that this did not mean India should not import at all. While
expressing concern over the country spending over Rs. 9,000 crores in import
of 42 lakh tonnes of edible oils in 1998-99, he acknowledged that this was
partly due to the massive growth in domestic consumption level.
``Although this demand is coming from only 10 per cent of the population, it
is huge in overall terms. But even here, if imports are inevitable, we have
to take care that the domestic oilseed farmers are not adversely affected
and our past gains from the Technology Mission on Oilseeds are not
reversed,'' he added. And in the case of foodgrains, the Government has to
be even more cautious, Dr. Swaminathan warned, while noting that there can
be no national sovereignty in a situation of `ship-to-mouth existence'.
Dr. Swaminathan was also critical of the Government not framing any
comprehensive national policy on agriculture. ``During the colonial period,
whatever agriculture policy existed was stimulated by famines, calamities
and other immediate short-term development. We seem to have reached a
similar policy vacuum now and our whole approach seems to be centered around
disaster management and meeting short-term needs through imports, etc. There
is no long-term policy aimed at defending the gains already made by the
Green Revolution and extending the same to hitherto unreached areas,'' he
said.
Dr. Swaminathan contrasted this approach with that of China, which had
managed to undertake an impressive programme of rural industrialisation
involving the movement of over 100 million people from farms to non-farm
rural occupations in the last 25 years.

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