Agri Commodity Update: India's Sugar Subsidies, Transport Assistance & Food Stock Scrutinized by WTO

Amid the corona crisis, India’s farm sops, including sugar subsidies, transport and marketing assistance and quantitative restrictions on pulses, once again came up for scrutiny and questioning by members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), such as the EU, the US, Canada, Brazil and Australia, this time at the agriculture committee meeting this week.

According to reports, New Delhi was also quizzed on the potential impact of its high amount of food stocks, and whether it was breaching its support limit for other farm goods, in addition to rice,” a Geneva-based official told the Business Line reporters.

Sugarcane Production during 2020-21

Sugar season was estimated at 3,900 lakh metric tonnes, of which 3,000 lakh mt was likely to be crushed producing around 305 lakh mt of sugar, as per the numbers.

Moreover, according to reports, India rejected the questioning of its export subsidies for transport and marketing scheme on the ground that as per the decision taken at the Nairobi Ministerial meeting in December 2013, developing countries were allowed to give such incentives till the end of 2023, the official said. It said that the scheme provides assistance for the international component of freight and for the marketing of agricultural produce.