Academic Foundation - Indian Economy: Books, Documents, Reports


	Executive Summary Introduction • WTO AoA – A Critical Appraisal • Trends in Agricultural Trade in the Context of the Reform Process • Competitiveness of Indian Agriculture • Indian Farmer under the WTO Regime
1.	Introduction Detailed Issues for the Study • The State of the Play • Trade Liberalisation – Rationale • Critical Appraisal of Rationale: Discrimination against Agriculture • Quantitative Estimates of Gains from Multilateral Trade Liberalisation • Some Recent Studies • Reduced Insulation of Domestic Markets
2.	The WTO Agreement on Agriculture: The Main Provisions GATT Discipline on Agriculture • Market Access • Basic Features of Four Selected Safeguard (SSG) Provisions • Ongoing Negotiations on Agreement on Agriculture : Market Access • Domestic Support • Ongoing Negotiations on Agreement on Agriculture: Domestic Support • WTO (AoA) Provisions on Export (Competition) Subsidies • Other Provisions • Appendix 2.1: Text of the Revised Modalities Draft (March 2003) on Market Access World Trade Organisation Preface General Provisions and Terms Market Access (Text of Suggested Modalities on Domestic Support in the Revised March 2003 Draft Domestic Support • Others • Full text of the Suggestions on Export Competition as per the March 2003 Modalities Draft)
3.	WTO and India: Implications of WTO Agreement on Agriculture for India Market Access • Commitments under Export Competition • Commitments under Domestic Support (Appendix: Major Agricultural Products: Import Tariffs and Trade Policy Status • Highlights of Indian Proposals • Texts of India’s Proposals)
4.	Trends in Agricultural Trade in the Context of the Reform Process Introduction: Changing Pattern of Agricultural Trade • India: Export and Import Scenarios • Economic Liberalisation and Agricultural Trade
5.	Competitiveness of Indian Agriculture Introduction • Measurement of Competitiveness • AMS as a Measure of Competitiveness • Net Protection Coefficient (NPC) • Effective Protection Coefficient (EPC) • Effective Subsidy Coefficient (ESC) • Domestic Resource Cost (DRC)• Import and Export Competitiveness of Indian Agriculture—State Wise Analysis (Introduction • Importable Hypothesis—Net Protection Coefficient (NPC) • Other Coarse Cereals, Pulses and Oilseeds • Export Hypothesis: NPC, EPC, ESC and DRC • Coarse Cereals • Other Measures of Competitiveness) • Competitiveness of Indian Agriculture: Summing up
6.	Food Security and International Trade Introduction • Economic Liberalisation and Food Security in India • Annex: India’s Proposals to the WTO for the Mandated Negotiations under the AoA on Food Security
7.	The State of the Indian Farmer: The Impact of Globalisation and Agricultural Liberalisation Introduction • WTO Provisions—Impact • The Impact of Macro-economic Policy Changes • Terms of Trade • Policy Suggestions

	The main objective of the present study entitled Globalisation and Indian Agriculture is to analyse the likely impact of the WTO on Indian agriculture. The Uruguay round of negotiations on the GATT Agreement was signed in April 1994 and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) the successor to GATT came into existence on January 1, 1995. The signing of the Uruguay Round (GATT 1994) Agreement along with the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) marks a new chapter in the history of multilateral trade negotiations in so far as for the first time the Agreement was successful in bringing agriculture within the ambit of discipline on international trade. The freeing of trade in agriculture under the AoA is likely to bring about significant increases in trade in agriculture and give unprecedented opportunities to the developing countries to benefit from increased agricultural exports. But this would depend on the developed countries’ willingness to reduce domestic and export subsidies and provide market access to agricultural exports from the developing countries. On the other hand, trade liberalisation is also likely to pose serious challenges for the developing countries. The challenges lie first in becoming globally competitive in agricultural exports and secondly, in enabling the sharing of the benefits of trade liberalisation not by a small minority of rich farmers but by the majority of small and marginal farmers and agricultural workers in India. The present study attempts to respond to some of the issues raised above. The focus of the study is to examine in what way the establishment of a free and liberalised trade regime under WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) would affect the fortunes of the ‘Indian farmer.’ The study also makes recommendations regarding the future course of action for making trade liberalisation work for the farmers in general and the small and marginal farmers, in particular. The study is organised into seven chapters preceded by Executive Summary. The Introduction in Chapter 1 is devoted to a brief discussion of the objectives of the study and also contains a brief but critical review of the rationale of trade liberalisation. This is followed in Chapter 2 by a review of the main provisions of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). This chapter also examines the question whether domestic support and export subsidies have actually been sufficiently reduced by the developed countries and whether they have provided adequate market access to agricultural exports from developing countries ? The discussion also refers in brief to the present state of negotiations on agriculture from Doha Ministerial meeting in 2002 to the Cancun Ministerial meeting in September 2003. Chapter 3 is devoted to a discussion of India's obligations with respect to the WTO. A brief review of performance of India in the matter of agricultural exports and imports since economic liberalisa-tion in 1991 and especially after the establishment of WTO in 1995 is undertaken in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 is devoted to an analysis of competitiveness among major crops grown in India. For a country of the size of India, food security would continue to remain an issue of paramount importance. Chapter 6 is devoted to an analysis of the problem of food security in India in the post-liberalisation period. Finally, Chapter 7 deals with the main objective of the study, namely, to examine in what way and to what an extent economic reforms and trade liberalisation have affected the standard of living of the Indian peasantry. This chapter also contains a few suggestions that would enable a large number of marginal and small and resource poor farmers to partake the benefits of trade liberalisation. This lucid and incisive study undertakes a critical analysis of the numerous issues connected with globalisation and agricultural trade liberalisation in India. Being one of the comprehensive and pioneering works in this area, it would be of immense interest to the economists and policy makers in India and abroad.

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