India defends stance on subsidies

WTO trade deal could leave India’s poorest without support from welfare programme in the name of food security.

More than half of India’s population rely on food subsidies to survive, but that could be jeopardised if the World Trade Organisation (WTO) pushes through with the trade deal.

The Indian government has been strongly resisting the deal, worried that a welfare programme to give cheap food to 600 million people and stockpile it in the name of food security will contravene WTO rules that limit farm subsidies to 10 percent of production.

Al Jazeera’s Sohail Rahman reports from Ahmedabad in Gujarat state.

Source: Al Jazeera