Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh said on Tuesday the interest of Indian farmers will be safeguarded at any cost in the negotiations on agriculture to begin soon at the World Trade Organisation and the government will not hesitate to use all the instruments available like bound rates and customs duties in this regard.
"The government keeps a close watch on the tariff rates on agricultural commodities and will appropriately use this to protect the interest of the farmers," Ajit Singh said while replying to a discussion in the Lok Sabha on problems being faced by farmers.
Giving statistics, he showed that export of agricultural commodities was more than the imports after the removal of quantitative restrictions.
He said imported apples only have a market in posh areas of Delhi but most people can afford and prefer domestic apples.
Negotiations on agreement on agriculture at the WTO are to begin soon. He said the negotiations would continue for a number of years and the government was trying to involve all the state governments and farmers to ascertain their views.
Dissatisfied with the reply, Samajwadi Party members walked out.
Earlier, Mani Shankar Aiyar (Congress) had protested in a similar manner, saying that the government had done nothing to ensure an effective solution to the Cauvery dispute which had hit the farmers of the concerned states.
Ajit Singh denied the charge made by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda that there was no coordination between the ministries of commerce, agriculture and finance on issues relating to custom duty fixation.
He said the Committee of Secretaries in which all the three ministries are represented fixes tariff rates after mutual consultation.
The minister called for a constitutional amendment on the lines of the Panchayati Raj Amendment to have a uniform law on cooperatives for all states to make them effective.
