India Seeks to Solve Food Security Concerns

Posted by Dan Jacobs|7 July 2015

India is looking for a permanent solution to its food security issues. Government representatives talked the WTO to resolve restrictions the organization had on the country. India is looking for a solution by the end of the year so that there could be predictability on farm subsidies, according to a report from the Economic Times of India.

“We have to get it (the permanent solution) by December 31. The permanent solution will bring in predictability and symmetry,” Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher told reporters here.

Initial steps came last November when the WTO agreed to India’s demand to remove constraints on the food stockpiling issue. The WTO’s General Council, the highest decision making body of the organization, accepted India’s demand for extending the peace clause till a permanent solution is found for its food stockpiling issue. According to the Economic Times, “This has enabled India to continue procurement and stocking of food grain for distribution to poor under its food security programme without attracting any kind of action from WTO members even if it breaches the 10 per cent subsidy cap as prescribed by the multilateral trade body.”

For a permanent solution to the food security issue, India had proposed either amending the formula to calculate the food subsidy cap of 10 per cent which is based on the reference price of 1986-88 or allowing such schemes outside the purview of subsidy caps.