Paris: Asking the developed countries to remove trade-distorting agricultural subsidies, India said today (Oct 7, 2004) that mercantilist compulsions of corporatised agriculture should not drive the negotiations in the World Trade Organisations.

In a forthright address before a distinguished international audience in Paris, Commerce and Industries Minister Kamal Nath said, "It is absolutely clear that developed countries must remove trade-distorting agricultural subsidies first and market access in developing countries would only follow the removal of such subsidies and not precede it."

"We do not deny the developed world agricultural market access on a whim, or because we do not want to engage in trade. We have been forced to turn protectionist because we have no alternative; there is no level playing field," he said.

Nath, who was addressing the international conference on 'liberalisation and the future of agricultural policy', organised by the French Institute of International Relations, said though the Indian farmer was not afraid of the farmer from a developed country and was willing to compete with him, he could not compete with the Government's of the developed countries.

"What we are confronting is a real life situation facing real persons desperate for recognition of the condition in which they live and the pressures on them from the subsidy-laden policies of other countries. Mecantilist compulsions of corporatised agriculture cannot drive these negotiations," Nath said.