The US and five other countries are considering a formal World Trade Organization case against India for underreporting rice and wheat subsidies.
Dalton Henry, vice president of policy with US Wheat Associates, says the subsidies have cost US producers $800 million due to a significant increase in production. “That eventually gets dumped onto the world market, and at that point, it suppresses global prices. That hurts US rice and wheat farmers both because of fewer export markets but because of the depressed price impact.”
In a counter-notification filed last week with the WTO, the US, Australia, Canada, Paraguay, Thailand and Ukraine say India provided rice subsidies that exceeded 78 percent of the value of production and wheat subsidies that exceeded 65 percent.
