EU vadas and US idlis

Watchword

If the $ 3 bn worth of US cotton subsidies were to be given to India's farmers, that would be more than enough for a US chaddi and EU banian for every farmer

("This is the theatre of the absurd," said Gawain Kripke of Oxfam. "While the two subsidy superpowers spend billions and flood the world market with cheap cotton, they bluster about the collapse of cotton prices being caused by good weather and people not wearing enough T-shirts.")

Tsk tsk tsk. Cancun has been truly distressing, with the poor nations ganging up against the rich. It's almost like the bad old socialist days. Whatever happened to compromise, that supreme bourgeois virtue?

Oxfam says US subsidies of $ 3 billion annually to its 25,000 cotton farmers depress prices and drive Third World farmers to suicide. On the other hand, the Deputy US Trade Representative at Cancun, Josette Shiner, pointed out that if people bought more cotton shirts, cotton prices would go up, helping farmers.

Oxfam was talking about supply, while the US trade representative was talking of demand. And since US farm subsidies have doubled in the last decade, the compromise solution, as Ms Shiner suggested, lies in increasing demand for agricultural products, rather than the Utopian one of eliminating subsidies. If only people would buy more T-shirts, there would be no need for the kind of disagreements we saw at Cancun.

Josette has in fact found the key to solving not only the cotton dispute, but indeed all trade disputes "" all one has to do is increase demand. Take agriculture "" rather than the rich being forced to slash their subsidies, all everybody has to do is to eat more. That would push up the prices of rice, wheat, corn, potatoes et al, resulting in a win-win situation.

One solution to the problem would therefore be for you and I to make that extra effort, tuck away one more banana, ask for that second helping, not turn away from the dessert. Sure, we will grow fat, but none of us will grudge that sacrifice for the sake of the world's farmers, including, of course, farmers like Cargill, ConAgra, General Foods.

Consider, for instance, the sacrifice that ordinary Americans are making. Not only are they doling out massive amounts in taxes to help their poor agribusiness corporations, they are also contributing very significantly towards the worldwide effort to eat more, with some studies saying that a third of the US population is obese. It is only fair that we too carry our share of the global paunch.

Eating more would also have positive knock-on effects on the world economy. Fatter people would need more cloth per body. That increase in cotton demand will raise prices, helping lift African cotton growers out of poverty.

Larger people would need bigger cars, consuming more steel, aluminium and other stuff per head, sparking off an industrial revival in the process. A worldwide 'Fat is fit' campaign could be launched, doing much to change attitudes, while increasing revenues for the ad industry.

Why, even demand for medicines may go up. One of Ms Shiner's demand-led models' shortcoming is that it's difficult to justify boosting demand for medicines. Those pesky NGOs will be quick to scream that we're encouraging disease.

Thankfully, the solution to that problem, too, lies in eating more, since eating too much causes plenty of diseases, ranging from heart disease to indigestion, to obesity. To sum up, therefore, eating more will not only help agribusiness corporations get rid of surpluses and provide firm prices to poor farmers, it will also increase the sale of medicines, making all that fuss about patents irrelevant.

There is, of course, a less stressful solution to the agricultural subsidy problem. If the vast majority of the people "" the poor "" eat more, the rest of us won't have to stretch our stomachs. Let the rich nations subsidise consumers, rather than producers.

To take a simple example, if the $ 3 billion worth of US cotton subsidies were to be given to India's 600 million farmers, that would be $ 5 per head per annum, or Rs 230 at today's exchange rate, more than enough for a US chaddi and an EU banian for every farmer.

Similarly, if the wheat, rice, sugar and other OECD subsidies totalling $1 billion a day were to be distributed among the poor, they would easily be able to gorge on EU and US food products. To be sure, we would need to ensure that the money is earmarked to buy EU and US stuff.

Idlis, for instance, could be stamped, 'Made from US rice' or vadas branded 'Made from choice EU potatoes', and they could then be distributed through the rationing system.

And lastly, I can only warn that if something is not done soon, our cows, green with envy, will migrate en masse to Europe "" they've come to know that EU cows get a subsidy of $ 2 every day.

manas@business-standard.com