WTO agreements and dimensions of india’s foreign trade: food security, water and environment

The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) under the World Trade Organization came into effect on 1st January 1995. The AoA insists to establish a fair and market oriented system through the process of negotiations of commitments on support and protection through operational rules and disciplines in the areas of market access, domestic support and export subsidies. It was envisaged that progressive reduction in agricultural support and protection over an agreed period of time would result in correcting distortions in world agricultural markets resulting in greater improvement in opportunities for realization of market access for member countries particularly the developing countries. There are many studies on impact of trade liberalization and WTO agreements. They show that the trade volume of India is increasing slowly. At present we are in the position to view seriously the impact of increased Indian foreign trade on three important and closely related areas that are food security, water and environment. Study on the impact of foreign trade on these areas becomes need of the hour on the following grounds: Food security is severely threaten by stagnant food production; shrinking in food production area; slow down in yield of food crops; overall slow down in the growth of agriculture; and, increase in absolute size of population and demand for foodgrains. Per capita water availability is decreasing sharply in the recent years; and, widespread water conflicts occur among water using sectors. Environment becomes another important area which is closely connected with the external trade. Because, every production discharges residual, and thus increased production with the view to export definitely brings pressure on the environment. Thus the study aims to view the size of external agriculture trade in the liberalized era through WTO agreement; to examine the change in direction and pattern the trade; to investigate impact of the trade on food security, water and environment; and to suggest policy measures to ensure the Indian food security, protect water resources and save the environment through trade mechanism. The present paper is carried out in this direction. In order to get clear picture of impact of foreign trade on the above respect, a comparative analysis is done between two periods ie. before the implementation and after implementation trade agreements.