State being trapped by international agencies?

Rajiv Ranjan Jha / TNN / Oct 29, 2005, 03:28 IST

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In their endeavour to win over UP, international dealers use conditions put forth by World Trade Agreement.

State being trapped by international agencies?

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh, which has a bigger food-production market than developed states like Punjab and Haryana, is being targeted by the international dealers. In their endeavour to win over UP, the international dealers use the conditions put forth by the World Trade Agreement.
Of the few conditions put up under the World Trade Agreement, one is that the beneficiary states should implement an agriculture extension system which encourages cultivation of cash crops like Jatropha and floriculture. Jatropha, which may be good for the barren land, makes the land unproductive for a couple of years, says agriculture experts.
These steps would eventually take the farmers away from cultivating traditional crops like wheat and rice. Next in the line is the market linkage which means that farmers would be deprived of having a say in the marketing of their produce.
It is worth reminding here that the states which have linked the market with the production centres are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana and Punjab. Under the WTA, all the states desirous of assistance from international funding agency would be required to meet these conditions.

Incidentally, states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh which linked market with the production centres, have earned notoriety by experiencing farmers' suicide in the recent past, said economist G P Mishra.
To cite another instance of how the state is falling into the trap laid by the WTA, the government had launched a sodic land reclamation project in 1993. This is a World Bank-sponsored project which had reclaimed 12 lakh hectares of land. This project was being implemented in districts where land reclamation was possible.
Now the state had agreed to implement this project in many districts where reclamation is not possible, admitted an official of the government. Another condition put up under the agreement is the creation of self-help groups giving them access to credit.
This would obviously make easy availability of public money to the members but promote debt-economy which in turn would devastate the farmers in the long-term. Now take the UP task project. This project was being implemented in 26 districts but would now be spread over in the entire state.
This project envisages taking farmers away from traditional cultivation to cash crops in the name of greater returns, said Sanjay Vijay Vargiya, an economist.

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