Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Obama Visit and Indian Agriculture: Profit Surge for American MNCs and Peril for Indian Farmers! by Vijoo Krishnan

Obama Visit and Indian Agriculture: Profit Surge for American MNCs and Peril for Indian Farmers! by Vijoo Krishnan

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Nov 17, 2010   modified Modified on Nov 17, 2010

A lot has been said and written about the visit of Barack Obama, the President of USA to India. The corporate media was in the usual over-enthusiastic drive to bring to its readers and viewers all minute details about his visit from where he stayed and what he ate to how many warships, planes and cars accompanied him and how a whopping $200 million was spent per day for the visit (Rs.900 crore approximately X 10 days) and not to miss the stories on his oratory skills and the graceful dance steps of Michelle Obama. Some coverage was also given to defence and strategic issues, the issue of ban on outsourcing, the jobs he took to USA and the support extended to an India that has “emerged” for sitting at the “high-table” of the UN Security Council. A section of the media and some columnists also referred in glowing terms to the enormous possibilities opened up for Indian agriculture and the advent of an “Ever-Green Revolution”. What however has not been reported is the nature of the “Strategic Cooperation” in Agriculture and food security; food processing, farm-to-market linkages and agricultural extension; and crop and weather forecasting. The unison with which the corporate media sang hosannas for the President of USA is understandable. They were representing their interests just as much as they were safeguarding their interests while giving space for paid news. What was missed in all the cacophony was the impact of the visit on the Indian masses, the peasantry and the rural poor. Let us go through the contours of this “Strategic Cooperation”.
 
Emerging Contours of “Strategic Cooperation” in Agriculture:
 
The Obama regime has maintained continuity with the preceding Bush regime in the basic thrust of USA’s relations with India in agriculture. The dice is heavily loaded in favour of the predatory Agribusinesses mainly based in the USA and the Indian ruling classes have also pushed forward the agenda of the Indian corporate houses. Unmistakably the direction of the “Strategic Cooperation” in agriculture has been determined by the India-US Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture (KIA). The American monopolies in seed, food and retail-trade namely Monsanto, Archer-Daniels-Midland and Wal-Mart have representation on the KIA Board in addition to the present day incarnation of the erstwhile Imperial Tobacco Company and others like FICCI and CII representing the interests of Agribusinesses. The Board meant to deal with agriculture ironically does not have a single representative of the peasantry.
 
Well in advance of the Obama visit a meeting of the “U.S.-India Agriculture Dialogue Steering Committee” took place. U.S Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs Robert D. Hormats, U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Jim Miller, and Deputy Coordinator for Development, Office of the Coordinator of Global Hunger and Food Security and U.S Department of State Ambassador William Garvelink held the meeting along with a Indian delegation led by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao. The Committee reportedly met to identify areas of cooperation for working groups on “Strategic Cooperation” in agriculture and food security; food processing, farm-to-market linkages and agricultural extension; and crop and weather forecasting. The present set of negotiations are only aimed at operationalising the India-US MOU for Cooperation in Agriculture and Food Security which was signed shrouded in the veil of secrecy well in advance of the Obama visit. It is only to take forward the vision that brought into existence the KIA.
 
The KIA, which had come to an end on 31 March 2010, is also all set to get a three-year extension as the Agriculture Ministry had taken up the issue with the US authorities after the five-year-old initiative ended in March. This is despite the Parliament Standing Committee on Agriculture asking the Agriculture Ministry to review the implementation and achievements of the initiative. The Committee, headed by CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharya, noted that the scheme failed to spend much as grants offered by the USA were not available. According to the Standing Committee the KIA which envisaged that matching grants would be received from the US side has seen continuous low spending in the Scheme during all three years of the Eleventh Plan and it was less than one third of the total outlay of Rs.50 crore. The Agriculture Ministry has not been able to persuade the USA to release matching grants in suitable proportions. The Standing Committee also had a rather harsh indictment of the failure of the Agriculture Ministry to work towards a mutually beneficial arrangement. While this was the reality, the US MNCs have used the opportunity and managed to infiltrate all Indian centres for agricultural research, extension and policy making structures. Although temporarily the KIA appears to be in cold storage, it successfully promoted unwanted US technologies on several farm universities, research centres and also got the farm gates opened to American Agribusinesses.
 
Now Manmohan Singh and Obama have been harping on an “Ever-Green Revolution”. It is not surprising that the US-India Business Council (USIBC) talks of a “Growing Agriculture” and the “noble objective” of an “Ever-Green Revolution” in their document titled 'Partners in Prosperity -Business Leading the Way' published on the eve of the Obama visit talks. This carries forward the stated objectives of the KIA and sets the tone for the “Strategic Cooperation in Agriculture” in the coming years. This document also stresses on the need to encourage US companies to “showcase in India their own success stories of business sector intervention in agriculture and food processing”. It claims that this would ''raise awareness in a positive way about how 'best practices' and technologies can deliver greater efficiencies'' so that India can achieve the 'Ever-Green Revolution'. The USIBC is also unequivocal in stating that the efforts to vitalize India’s agriculture sector “should be driven by business”. Our policy makers are merely dancing to their tunes.
 
Conquest of Indian Agriculture: Windfall Gain for The Agribusinesses
 
The unbridled access to Indian agriculture provided by the Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture has been systematically strengthened by the subversion of agricultural research in India and diluting the autonomy of Indian agricultural universities and research centres by forced collaborations between them and US Agribusinesses. The direction of agricultural research in the country is now being altered to cater to the needs of MNCs driven by the sole motive of profit. Peasant agriculture is being sidelined by promoting technologies tailor-made to benefit corporate agriculture. The recent trend of laying an undue emphasis on research GM crops which is also seen as central to the “Ever-Green Revolution” is a direct result of such an intervention. The cooption of a section of the agricultural scientists and researchers in these organisations into the paradigm sought by the Agribusinesses on the KIA Board and their unquestioning compliance to its recommendations has also been achieved systematically.
 
One clear intention of the Obama visit is to expand the stranglehold of the American Agribusinesses in the rural countryside. Already States ruled by the Congress as well as the BJP and their allies are going full steam ahead by superimposing over the public extension services they so meticulously dismantled over the last two decades a network of extension services to be provided by predatory Agribusinesses. The farm gates in the State of Rajasthan have already been opened up to Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer, PEPSICO, Cargill, SAB Miller, Lupin and some Indian companies. An MOU has already been reached with Reuters for “sending advisories to farmers” on mobile phones. This is something Obama had referred to in glowing terms before emphasizing that Indian agriculture was ‘growing’ and that the time is ripe for the “Ever-Green Revolution”. In Rajasthan Monsanto has a major maize project called Project Golden Rays as well as the Project Sunshine in Gujarat where the States buy the hybrids from the Company and distributes them to farmers, the expenditure incurred being financed by the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. The Congress as well as the BJP and their allies converge on this policy of rolling the red-carpet to these Agribusinesses. What has been envisaged by the Obama visit is to spread their web across the country and retain control of Indian agriculture and the nature of technology transfer in agriculture.
 
In the name of reducing post harvest losses there is talk of need to improve India’s ‘farm-to-market global supply chain’ which hints at business sector intervention in food processing and storage other than retailing per se. This is another sector which the big American Companies are eyeing and the Indian Government has also been talking the same language for quite some time. What cannot be missed in this context is the fact that Mike Duke, CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc the world's largest retailer had come to India well in advance of Obama’s visit drumming up support among Indian policy makers for the opening up of the multi-brand retail sector for FDI. Wal-Mart has been pressing for removing restrictions to foreign companies investing in multi-brand retailing. Duke in the process met Anand Sharma, the Commerce Minister and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.
 
The organised retail accounts for merely 6 percent of the $450 billion retail sector in India and presently the access to foreign firms in the sector is restricted. Most top retailers of the world see a lucrative market in India and have been seeking that it ease restrictions on foreign ownership to begin retail operation so that they can sell their agricultural and dairy products among others. The USIBC document mentioned above also called for opening up of multi-brand retail sector to 'organised players'. It claims “Study after study has shown, doing so would bring efficiency, infrastructure, technology, and know-how to Indian farmers, food processors, food service providers, and other suppliers,''. The USIBC also notes the “massive market opportunity” in Indian cities for the retail sector. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) had articulated similar concerns when in a discussion paper it stated emphatically “The agriculture sector needs well functioning markets to drive growth, employment and economic prosperity in rural areas”. Opening up retail trade for FDI remains a top priority issue for the global retail giants. Millions of Indians depend on this sector as their small shops provide the main source of livelihood for them, catering to the demands of more than 1 billion people; their livelihoods will be put into jeopardy by any such move.
 
The USIBC document also specifically states that the Joint Agriculture Dialogue should be backed with both “resources and solid deliverables” and suggests the lowering of tariff and non-tariff barriers which are ''affecting trade in fresh fruits and vegetables, poultry, pistachios, dairy products, and horticultural products. We also seek reduced customs duties on items such as processing equipment, restaurant equipment, and related goods''. The US MNCs and the US Grain Council has been insisting on lifting trade barriers. The easing of controls on dairy products for instance will seriously compromise the livelihood of an estimated 90 million people, a majority of whom are women. Women are estimated as comprising 75 million of the employees in dairy sector and they will be out of jobs because they cannot compete with the heavily-subsidized American dairy sector. Dairy sector is also of crucial importance to the small and marginal farmers as well as the landless poor and a significant source of income for millions of families. The very existence of the vibrant network of cooperative milk federations and women’s groups will be under threat. Already with increasing costs of cattle-feed and fodder, imports of cheaper skimmed milk powder and butter oil despite a glut in domestic production this sector is also witnessing a crisis. The flooding of Indian markets with cheap dairy products from the USA will further push the millions of dependent farmers and agricultural labourers into indebtedness and perpetual poverty forcing them to give up agriculture and dairying.
 
The Agriculture Ministry has revealed that it has put on hold import of dairy products as of now on the grounds that these products may be made from the milk of cattle fed with feed containing blood meal, internal organs of animals or a non-vegetarian diet containing beef and “India would have to be sensitive to religious sentiments”. Ironically the decision was not in any way because it will compromise the livelihoods of millions of our farmers. In the same breath the Agriculture Minister stated that India has an “open mind” on the matter and the dairy products will be subject to protocol and verification and if scientific studies prove that it does not affect the milk, he gave enough indications that their import will be allowed. The directions of the negotiations are clearly in favour of taking forward the Neo-Liberal agenda of free trade. In the context of huge subsidies to American agriculture such moves will lead to American products swamping the Indian markets. This will mean a surge in profits for American MNCs and increased trade surplus for the agriculture sector in US and peril for the Indian peasantry. The USA wants to revitalise its wilting economy on the strength of the Indian market at the expense of Indian farmers and consumers.
 
The stress on the rather innocuous seeming crop and weather forecasting, water utilisation and the black-out of the substantive issues of negotiations is a clever move by both the Governments. How even these moves will provide precise information which can be used to the benefit of American food exporters and traders can be assessed only with time. The Agriculture Minister has recently gone on record that the talks with US Department of Agriculture (USDA) were inconclusive and they would continue. He however said that they discussed “General Issues” for instance, export of mangoes and the high phytosanitary fee making it unviable for India and that the USDA is basically interested in export of barley and pet food products especially for dogs. He also added the import of barley may benefit beer makers like United Breweries. The people of India are not so naïve as to believe barley, mango, beer and dog food was what occupied the major share of time in the discussions between the Agriculture Minister and the USDA. The issues mentioned above were clearly what took the centre-stage. Let us not miss the wood for the trees. The direction of negotiations points clearly to a corporate take-over of Indian agriculture. Like any trader the American establishment came to sell their wares at the most profitable terms and they went satisfied. Indian ruling classes sold our interests and kowtowed to their imperialist masters.


Pragoti, 17 November, 2010, http://pragoti.org/node/4219


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close