developed nations gave huge subsidy to their farmers and if they stopped those subsidies, the cost of overseas farm produce would rise. That was beneficial to the Indian farmers because in that case Indian farm produce prices would obviously become more attractive. Moreover, there was no question of reducing subsidy paid to Indian farmers because the Indian farmer was already getting a negative subsidy! In other words, the amount he would have normally got for his produce, was reduced by the government policy, and the amount farmers lost thereby was far more than the so-called subsidy government was giving on input like fertilizer, power etc. The issue of reducing subsidies was actually going to affect farmers of the developed world and not the Indian farmers who were anyway not getting any real subsidy. On the question of International Property Rights, Joshi maintained that if new research had to be encouraged, it was vital that the patents were not violated. That was the meaning of respecting international property rights; if one’s invention which was generally a result of huge investment and effort, was to be copied freely, then there was no incentive left in inventing new products. Thus Joshi was clear that on all five points the Indian farmer stood to benefit from the Dunkel Draft. Additionally, he was also convinced that a platform like WTO, which was proposed by Dunkel Draft, was an ideal forum where Indian farmers could complain against several practices of the developed nations which went against the interest of the Indian farmers. For instance, we could complain against their dumping of produce remaining unsold in their own countries in Indian market which inevitably brought down the prices of what Indian farmers were producing. For Joshi, WTO and Dunkel Draft was basically an extension of classic economic thought espoused by Adam Smith 290
Q
Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
