Cancun: Turning the tables on the developed countries, India has made a forceful plea at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial saying that the plight of poor farmers were directly linked to subsidies given by industrialised nations to their farmers and the answer lay in correcting such distortions in agriculture.

In an apparent attack on the European Union and the United States trying to thrust their agenda, particularly on agriculture, through the backdoor, Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley wanted development dimension to take the centrestage in the negotiations and demanded that the conference move towards a more "inclusive and transparent" decision-making process.

In his statement to the fifth WTO Ministerial on September 10, Jaitley pointed out that the protection to agriculture in developed countries was four to seven times more than that for manufactured goods.

This stimulated over-production in high-cost rich countries, shutting out potentially more competitive products from developing countries.

"It is no surprise that over the past few years, agricultural exports from developing countries to developed countries grew at just half the rate they did to other developing countries," he said.

"Let us also remind ourselves that the agriculture subsidies provided by OECD countries are more than six times they spend on official development assistance," the Minister said.

PTI