When President Bush returned from his trip to India earlier this month, it seemed like he returned home with a billion new friends.
That’s an overstatement, of course: India is a big and diverse society whose members probably hold every viewpoint there is when it comes to the United States.
Yet there can be no denying that President Bush has strengthened the bonds between Washington and New Delhi. There are those who will urge Congress to scuttle the nuclear pact that our government has reached with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and congressional approval may in fact be difficult to achieve. But it is also true that relations between our two countries have perhaps never been warmer than they are right now.
And they ought to grow warmer still. As an English-speaking democracy, India shares much in common with the United States. We have a number of similar security interests, from a desire to contain Islamic radicalism to a need to keep an eye on the ambitions of China.
Economics also will keep our nations linked. Over the last quarter century, India’s economy has grown by nearly 6 percent each year--and it shows no signs of slowing down. According to some projections, India’s economy will be larger than Italy’s within a decade and it will be the world’s third-largest, after the United States and China, by 2040. As India grows wealthier, its demand for U.S. products will increase. Last year alone, U.S. exports to India actually jumped by 30 percent.
It would not surprise me if India eventually passed China on the road to economic prosperity. China, after all, remains an essentially closed society whose leaders permit a certain amount of economic freedom but almost no political freedom. When it comes to economic freedom, India still has a long way to go--New Delhi has by no means shrugged off its socialist past. Yet the Indian people themselves are fundamentally free, and freedom is a cornerstone of economic development.
American farmers stand to gain a great deal from this improving friendship. Last year, agricultural exports to the subcontinent were valued at less than $300 million--a figure that’s poised to rise given the country’s huge population.
The first step will require lowered barriers to trade. Although the average bound agricultural tariff for the United States is just 12 percent, India’s rate of 114 percent is far above the worldwide average of 62 percent. As a member of the WTO, India can be helpful in eliminating both tariff and non-tariff barriers placed on seeds, new chemicals and industrial products used in agriculture, benefiting both developed and developing countries.
Ultimately, the decision to reduce these high taxes on imports will have to come from the Indians themselves. Our greatest allies in this initiative will be the emerging Indian middle class, which is growing rapidly every year and whose members will understand the importance of international trade because they want to live better.
Many of India’s small-scale farmers may interpret lowered tariffs as a threat to their livelihoods. Because agriculture accounts for about 60 percent of India’s employment, protectionism is likely to remain a strong force in the nation’s politics.
Yet American and Indian farmers also share an interest in biotechnology. The United States is the global leader in GM crops; India is currently the world’s 7th leading biotech grower, with Bt cotton as its dominant crop. Last year, India’s Bt cotton acreage more than doubled, to 3.25 million acres. Resource poor farmers are choosing this technology because they understand and are experiencing its benefits.
There is still resistance to biotech crops in India--nothing on a European scale, but also more of a problem than it is in the western hemisphere. Yet I’m optimistic that Indian farmers will demand steady progress, especially for drought-resistant varieties of biotech crops. Only about one-third of India’s arable land has access to modern irrigation, which means that farmers are very dependent on rainfall. They will welcome biotech solutions to their common dry-weather problems.
The bottom line is that India and the United States have a bright future together as allies in trade and technology. And I can think of a billion reasons to be happy about that.
Dean Kleckner is an Iowa farmer and past president of the American Farm Bureau. He chairs Truth About Trade and Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org) a national non-profit based in Des Moines, IA, formed and led by farmers in support of freer trade and advancements in biotechnology.
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When President Bush returned from his trip to India earlier this month, it seemed like he returned home with a billion new friends.
