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Devinder Sharma
Food & Agriculture Specialist
Addressing the Oxford Real Farming Conference last week, I said that the iconic farmers movement in India will have tremendous global implications. If the Indian farmers succeed in making Minimum Support Price (MSP) a legal right, it will cause major disruptions in international trade, with focus shifting from trade competitiveness to first ensuring that the livelihoods of farmers the primary producers everywhere in the world become economically viable and sustainable.
At the same time, instead of leaving the farmers to face the vagaries of markets, which have pushed them globally into a debt trap, the demand for ensuring that no trading takes place below the MSP not only provides them with a safety net but it will also gradually become an economic design for the rest of the world to emulate.