India is required to phase out QRs for 2,714 commodities, out of which over 800 are from agricultural sector. India's commitment to phase out QRs within a period of six years and offer a list of commodities to be phased out in preference has been contested by the US before the WTO dispute settlement body. As a decision in the matter is awaited, the phase out timeframe is yet to be notified by WTO.

RIS research fellows, Biswajit Dhar and Sachin Chaturvedi in their analysis stated that there would be an adverse impact of removal of QRs on the long-term sustainability of the domestic agricultural sector and its ability to ensure food security. The discriminatory policies of farm support as between developed and developing countrieswhich the WTO agreement on agriculture has introduced could together with the QRs removal leave India and other developing countries with the situation of facing uncertainties in the global market.

The developed countries, whose agricultural policies have already led to distortions in the world market would be safe as they are likely to continue to support their agriculture at levels higher than those at the beginning of 1980s by taking advantage of the so called `green-box' policies. In the first half of 1980s, developed countries had increased their levels of farm support several fold and this implied that despite making the reduction commitments regarding subsidies under the Uruguay Round, these countries would not be affected much. Besides the US and European Union have indicated that their main instruments of farm support would remain unaltered since they qualify for treatment under `green-box' policies.

Both Dhar and Chaturvedi stated that the developed countries are well protected under the `peaceclause' i.e., Article 13 of the agreement on agriculture which limits the scope of complaints by other countries regarding green-box policies, domestic support and export subsidies that conforms to the provisions of the agreement.

Comparatively, in such a pertaining situation, the dismantling of QRs along with perceived lowering of competitiveness of domestic food crops on account of domestic prices rising closer to global prices coupled with the depreciation of the rupee would lead to severe strain on food economy particularly in light of the fact that the global volumes of subsidised exports have only marginally decreased even after the introduction of the WTO discipline. The exports of agriculture produces will not also be competitive.

This pressure that the food crops production in the country could face needed to be studied in conjunction with a related phenomena of farmers opting more for cultivation of commercial crops as against food crops leading to the country's dependence on global market at aconsiderable cost.

The farmers would switch over to commercial crops as they would find them more remunerative than food crops.

This prospects of having to depend on global buffers for a country with a large consumption capacity like India should be viewed with trepidation as global food stocks have been continuously below the level considered minimum for safeguarding world food security.

Increased import competition for foodgrains would be the only real possibility in this regime which India is likely to adopt in the coming years. This is already supported by the fact that major agricultural trading countries have been able to give themselves considerable flexibility in grant of export subsidies. Five major wheat exporting countries were able to channelise almost 40 million tonne of subsidised wheat which was about 40 per cent of the global wheat trade in mid-1990s.