are imported into the country or
exported out. But several new trade
pacts like the Regional Compre-
hensive Economic Partnership
(RCEP) or the proposed deals
pending with Europe, threaten to
wipeout India’s small dairy farmers.
The vast majority of these
farmers are small land holders,
owning less than a hectare and just
two or three cows or buffaloes.
Although the average milk
production per animal is very low
(3 litres/animal/day) compared to
industrialised countries (30 litres/
animal/day), Indian dairy farmers
nevertheless have managed to
ensure the availability of a
nutritious yet affordable food for an
ever increas-ing Indian population.
Dairy in India is much more
than an industry. It is the main
source of livelihood for hun-dreds
of millions of small and marginal
farmers, landless labourers and
pastoralists, and tens of millions
more people involved in the
collection, processing and sale of
dairy products, many of whom are
women.
The international dairy market
has long been controlled be finance
capital. Essentially what happens
is that heavily subsi-dised surplus
production in a small number of
countries, that have mainly
mechanized the dairy sector, is
dumped on the international
market, and mostly exported into
developing countries.
Developing countries like
India can only protect their dairy
sectors from the ravages of this
distorted global market by
instituting high tariff and non-tariff
barri-ers. Without these measures,
their small scale dairies would
rapidly be wiped out and taken
over by global dairy giants. India’s
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
argued against opening the
country to dairy imports in 2013,
when he was Chief Minister of
Gujarat.
16
Today, India’s dairy sector is
protected by an import tariff of 30
to 60 percent. Since 2003, India
has also imposed various sanitary
and phytosanitary require-ments
on dairy imports, which have
essentially served to block US dairy
products from entering the Indian
market. Yet, despite these barriers
to imports, dairy compa-nies have
found loop holes in the system and
have been importing a growing
amount of dairy components, like
lactose and whey, from Europe
and the US. These imports can
have significant impacts on India’s
cooperative dairies and small scale
dairy systems. According to India’s
largest dairy cooper-ative AMUL,
“Every month about 1,500 tonnes
of whey powder gets imported in
the country. As a result we are
forced to sell our stock cheap
because the imported whey is
cheaper,” despite import duties of
40 percent.
This is not a wild criticism.
Many MNCs are waiting at the entry
gates to by RCEP agreement (See
the box item)
Top 1% up $21 Trillion
Bottom 50% down $900 Billion
Recently, the Federal Reserve of the USA released a new
data series called the Distributive Financial Accounts, which
provide quarterly estimates of the distribution of wealth in
America. The series goes back to 1989, and runs to the fourth
quarter of 2018.
The insights of this new data series are many, but for this
post here I want to highlight a single eye-popping statistic.
In 2018, whereas the top 1 percent owned nearly $30
trillion of assets, the bottom half owned less than nothing,
meaning they have more debts than they have assets. This
is a result of the economic policies followed in the US for the
past 30 years, becauses of which the top 1 percent massively
grew their net worth while the bottom half saw a slight decline
in its net worth. Between 1989 and 2018, the top 1 percent
increased its total net worth by $21 trillion. The bottom 50
percent actually saw its net worth decrease by $900 billion
over the same period.
contd from page 24
in the days to come. A genuinely
pro-people, struggle-oriented,
united and democratic voice
against this onslaught has
emerged in the Convention.
The
Convention
was
conducted and steered by Vasisht
Tiwari; Babu Dhan Murmu,
Damodar Tiwari and Francis
Shravan. Siya Sharan Sharma
made a key Note address in the
Convention. D.C.Gohai; Shambhu
Mahato;
Vasishta
Tiwari;
V.K.Patole; Sumit Roy; Jai Ram
Jerald Kunjur; Ram Kavindra
Singh; Francis Shravan; Damodar
Tiwari; Babu Dhan Murmu; Jasuva
Kachhap; Bachha Singh; Madan
Paul; Madan Mohan; Deepak
Ranjit; Vikas Chandra Sharma and
others have addressed the
Convention.
The Convention concluded in
an atmosphere of unity and
struggle.
Class Struggle