More Stories

Informist, Thursday, Mar. 27, 2025

 

NEW DELHI – The proposed bilateral trade agreement between India and the US is likely to put huge pressure on the country's agriculture sector, G. Chandrashekhar, policy and agri-commodity expert, said at Tefla's Maize and Millet summit 2025. "Through the BTA (bilateral trade agreement), US will try to open up India's agricultural sector," the expert said.

 

According to Chandrashekhar, the US will primarily focus on increasing cotton exports to India, which is currently subject to a 10% import duty. "The US will pressurise India to import it at nil duty in a government-to-government set-up," he said. Furthermore, the US will likely ask India to import soybean. "India currently imports about 3.5 million tonnes of oil (soyoil), which equals about 20 million tonnes of soybean. Washington is likely to ask India to import it all from the US," he said. 

 

Chandrashekhar said that the US will also push for India to open its dairy and poultry sectors, as well as its market for wheat and corn. "The US has been very keen to enter our poultry market. It has a huge amount of chicken legs which it wants to export. In the dairy sector, it will look to export animal health products such as vaccines and injections," he said.

 

The US has been seeking to open India's agriculture sector. With large-scale mechanised farming and heavy government subsidies, the US and other developed countries view India as a lucrative market for expanding their exports, as per reports.

 

However, opening up the sector would likely mean reducing import duties, which are currently in place to support domestic farmers. Agriculture and allied activities such as animal husbandry are the backbone of India's rural economy, employing over 700 million people.

 

In September 2023, India and the US settled their last pending World Trade Organization dispute over poultry imports. The US first raised the issue in 2012, challenging India's import restrictions on poultry products due to concerns over avian influenza. The World Trade Organization ruled in favour of the US, stating that India's measures were inconsistent with global trade norms.

 

As part of the agreement, India also agreed to reduce tariffs on certain US products, including frozen turkey, frozen duck, fresh blueberries and cranberries, frozen blueberries and cranberries, dried blueberries and cranberries, and processed blueberries and cranberries.

 

Chandrashekhar is also of the view that the US will push India to adopt genetically modified crops, such as corn, and put pressure on the country to open up its market for them. "We will have to look at the government's ideological stand on change of policy on genetically modified crops. It seems hugely disruptive right now, but it is looking like a likely scenario," he said.

 

Senior trade officials from India and the US formally began three-day talks on the proposed bilateral trade agreement in New Delhi on Wednesday. Both the countries are aiming to finalise the deal by October. Ahead of talks, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had issued a statement, saying, "As directed by the leaders of the two countries, India remains committed to working with the US side in the trade and economic domains."

 

New Delhi has indicated a list of products–ranging from automobiles and alcohol to certain farm produce from the US--on which it is willing to lower the tariffs.  End

 

Reported by Pallavi Singhal

Written by J. Navya Sruthi

Edited by Subhojit Sarkar

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.