NEW DELHI: The All India Kisan Sabha on Wednesday threatened the Centre of “militant resistance” from farmers if it proceeds with the India-US trade deal.In a statement, the farmer’s organisation said that the concessions to Washington would threaten agriculture in the country and lead to greater corporate consolidation in the sector.The farmers’ organisation said that farmers in the country would be unable to compete with “heavily subsidised” American agricultural producers.“The government will face militant resistance from the peasantry if it goes ahead with the anti-national trade deal,” it said.“The ongoing visit of US secretary of state Marco Rubio, and the negotiations he reportedly led with Indian authorities to ‘finalise’ a trade deal between the US and India, demonstrate that the RSS-BJP-led Union government will go to any extent to please their imperial masters,” it added.AIKS also accused the government of keeping the Parliament in the dark about the details of the proposed agreement, even as negotiations appeared to be nearing completion.This comes after Rubio said that the deal is “very close”, with the US demand to sell milk products in India emerging as the last hurdle, the AIKS said, adding that commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal had also said the agreement was in the final stage of legal drafting.
“Indian soybean farmers cannot compete with heavily subsidised industrial farmers in the US,” it said.“To put it simply, concessions to the US would result in a dangerous level of corporate consolidation in Indian agriculture,” it added.The organisation also criticised the government’s decision in September to reduce the basic import duty on crude soybean oil and palm oil from 10 per cent to 5 per cent, along with cuts in duties on refined oils. It said the move came just as farmers were beginning to harvest kharif soybeans.