Cancun, Mexico, Sept 09: India was on the offensive today attacking the United States and European Union for being responsible for depressed farm prices hurting poor farmers in developing countries because of high domestic support and export subsidies in industrialised nations. "We made it amply clear the fact that depressed farm prices due to heavy domestic support and export subsidies in US and EU was hurting farmers in countries like India most as they were not getting remunerative prices for their produce," Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley is believed to have told US trade representative Robert Zoellick and EU trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy when he met them separately for one-to-one bilateral meeting here today.
From a defensive stance, India was offensive on this issue and Jaitley was categorical in telling US and EU that reforms in agriculture should start first in Europe and America as farmers in poor countries were hurt because of their subsidies, raising serious livelihood concerns.
It was not the question of less distorting or more distorting subsidies as was being made out particularly by EU on agriculture negotiations at WTO, Jaitley, who indulged in some plain speaking on the eve of WTO ministerial here told both Lamy and Zoellick.

There was clearly a "strong and definite" opinion on Singapore issues, Indian officials told reporters after the dinner meeting with developed and developing countries.
Some of them were part of the g-20 alliance which included India, Brazil and China, who have given counter proposal to the pro developed proposal of the EU and US on agriculture.
On agriculture, Lamy is understood to have asked Jaitley to provide statistics regarding how depressed farm prices affected Indian farmers, which New Delhi has agreed to provide shortly.
Jaitley also had detailed one-to-one discussions with Mexican Foreign Minister Louis Ernesto Derbex, who is the chairman of the fifth ministerial from September 10 to 14. The meeting was mainly confined to procedural modalities, officials said.
Jaitley also had a luncheon meeting with a "like- minded" group, a lose arrangement of countries which come together on various issues.
On Singapore issues, India has made it clear there cannot be a predetermined position. "We have made our position clear and there was convergence of thinking in many developing countries particularly on having investment rules as part of trade negotiations," official sources said.
Jaitley had clearly told the bilateral meetings that India was totally opposed to bringing into the work programme the four issues of investment, competition policy, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement.
Asked if there was any change in stance after the recent meeting of the cabinet committee on WTO to go with US on the proposal to unbundle the four issues, officials said that was only half truth and India would be opposing all the four issues at the WTO ministerial.
On the issue of non-agriculture products` market access, which are also known as negotiations on industrial tariffs, the sources said there was some flexibility since India did not wish to take a very offensive position as it did not want to open too many fronts.
On agriculture and Singapore issues, India is determined to oppose them even at the risk of being isolated as it was the question of livelihood of 650 million farmers and sovereignty in the case of investment.
Elaborating on the issue of agriculture, Indian officials said the EU`s attempt right from 1992 to reform agriculture through partial decoupling had curiously opposite effect. In cereals for instance, partial decoupling, instead of restricting or controlling production, actually led to an increase in production by nearly 20 per cent.
This was not accompanied by decline in production in any other sector and could not have been a result of rising competitiveness of EU`s agriculture. Cereals continue to remain overpriced and subsidised. It is not clear how the present decoupling in the proposed common agriculture policy of EU wold bear the projected results.
Meanwhile, Indian pharma industry representatives, who have come here as part of CII delegation, said the agreement on the long drawn out issue of trips and public health prior to the start of the WTO ministerial has come as a big relief not only to India but also to other developing and least developed countries.

Bureau Report