World Trade Agreement and Indian Agriculture:Implementation Experience

Several recent studies on the causes of poor performance of agriculture, often relate to WTA and its likely adverse implications against promise. It is also a fact that WTO agreements are now a reality and these agreements can only be modified. The global scenario in future is going to become more competitive and the pressure for liberalization of Indian domestic market would also grow. In this context, it is thought appropriate to critically analyze the implementation experience of WTO provisions on Indian agriculture. This is because, it facilitates to compare the realities faced so far against the myths hypothesized at the time of formation of WTO. An attempt was made in this direction by analyzing the prospects and retrospects for India with reference to exports, imports, net trade, export competitiveness, SPS measures, AMS requirements etc., in the context of WTO and comparative picture was drawn with reference to pre-WTO regime. This facilitates India in taking active part in the future negotiations to its advantages with sound arguments and for designing the policies and economic activities for sustainable agricultural development. Further, it facilitates to devise appropriate domestic policies and strategies, identification of strengths and weaknesses of domestic produce vis-a-vis major competing players and to improve export competitiveness. This book is timely, in the sense that, it provides critical appraisal of the major issues of Indian agricultural trade and suggests the potential areas for making the Indian agricultural trade a viable perspective in the global market. This book is very useful to the post-graduates and doctoral students pursuing agricultural education, scientific community, extension workers, policy makers and planners, so as to design and execute the agricultural trading policies in relevance to the global trends.