Farmers' body AIKSCC on Thursday said it will organise a nationwide protest on November 4 to warn the government against going ahead with inclusion of agriculture in the proposed RCEP trade deal.
The AIKSCC, a coalition of over 250 farmer organisations in the country, has demanded the Centre to make the provisional text of the proposed agreement public and hold consultations with farmers, farm bodies, state governments and other stakeholders before taking a final decision.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a mega free-trade agreement being negotiated among 10 ASEAN countries with their six FTA partners (India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand). The proposed deal is expected to be finalised and signed by the next month.
"We have decided to organise a nationwide protest on November 4, the day when RCEP negotiations are expected to conclude," All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) Convenor V M Singh said in a statement.
The proposed RCEP trade pact, which will aggravate the farmers' crisis, is being concluded in "complete secrecy" and no draft of the negotiated text has been made public, he said.
Singh said the proposed RCEP will aggravate this crisis immensely as it is likely to hurt the Indian agriculture and dairy sector in a way no other trade agreement has so far.
Till now, AIKSCC said the general norm has been to keep agriculture out of free trade agreements, a convention followed even in the ongoing EU-US free trade negotiations.
Forced reduction in tariffs to zero or near-zero would cripple the Indian dairy sector, thus affecting the livelihood of nearly 10 crore families.
A similar threat to Indian farmers looms large for farmers who cultivate wheat and cotton (challenge from Australia and China), oilseed producers (challenge of palm oil import) and plantation producers (pepper, coconut, areca nut, cardamom, rubber, etc).
"The impact of RCEP on Indian farmers is not limited to tariff alone. The discussion about TRIPS-plus obligations on intellectual property rights poses a special danger on seed patents and breeding of animals," the AIKSCC said.
With regard to apple farmers of Kashmir, the farmers' body said the government's "ill planned" procurement plan through the cooperative Nafed has "fallen flat" and a delegation will soon visit Kashmir to assess the situation.
AIKSCC demanded farm-gate purchase of apples by the government and full payment of crop value to the farmers. The government must also compensate farmers and traders for the losses they have suffered.
The farmers' body also demanded compensation for huge crop loss faced by farmers due to drought, flood and untimely rains in some parts of the country. It also sought fixing of a minimum support price based on the Swaminathan Commission Formula.
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