Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements (ICCFM) - 15 July 2025

To,
Shri Piyush Goyal,
Minister of Commerce and Industry,
Government of India

Subject: The Indian Government Must Stop Any Trade Deal with the USA That Is Detrimental to Farmers’ Interests – No Interim FTA to Be Signed with the USA

Dear Shri Piyush ji,

The Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements (ICCFM), a network of farmers’ organizations across Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Maharashtra, is writing to you to express our profound concerns regarding the ongoing negotiations for a trade deal with the United States. We understand this agreement is expected to evolve into a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA) encompassing all sectors, including agriculture. We urgently request that you exclude all aspects of agriculture from this trade deal to protect the interests of Indian farmers, ensuring our food sovereignty and security, and safeguarding the vitality of our rural economy.

Alarming Implications for Indian Agriculture
The potential consequences of a trade agreement that grants duty-free access to the US agricultural products are deeply alarming. The United States has been engaged in a trade war with China, Mexico, and Canada since 2018, which has severely impacted US agricultural exports. For example, soybean exports from the US plummeted from $34.4 billion in 2022 to $24.5 billion in 2024, and corn exports fell from $18.6 billion to $13.9 billion during the same period1. As a result, the US trade deficit in agriculture has nearly doubled, indicating a significant surplus that they may seek to offload onto markets like India.

The Threat of Heavily Subsidized US Agriculture
The US government is among the world’s largest agricultural subsidizers, with the 2024 Farm Bill allocating a staggering $1.5 trillion. These substantial subsidies not only restrict agricultural imports into the US but also enable American products to enter export markets at artificially low prices. Allowing such heavily subsidized US imports into India would undermine our long-standing position at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against these very subsidies. More critically, it could flood our markets with cheap, subsidized products, destabilizing domestic prices and severely harming our farmers.

• The Indian Dairy Sector: The dairy sector is vital to the livelihoods of over 80 million farmers in India, predominantly small and marginal holders, landless livestock rearers, and women farmers. We are deeply concerned that the upcoming trade deal includes provisions for American dairy products to access Indian markets. A recent report by the State Bank of India (SBI) cautions that opening India’s dairy sector to the US imports could result in an annual loss of Rs 1.03 lakh crore to Indian dairy farmers2. The report highlighted that if the dairy sector is opened up, the price of milk in India is likely to drop by at least 15%, significantly impacting the livelihoods of small dairy farmers due to the heavily subsidized US dairy sector. This move could also increase India’s milk imports by approximately 25 million tonnes annually. The dairy sector contributes about 2.5-3% to the national Gross Value Added (GVA), amounting to around Rs 7.5-9 lakh crore, and provides direct employment to nearly 8 crore people. A 15% drop in milk prices would not only reduce farmer incomes but also weaken the sector’s overall contribution to the economy, with an estimated GVA loss of around Rs 0.51 lakh crore after accounting for input costs. Furthermore, the contentious and unacceptable issue of animal feed fed to the cattle in the US containing blood meal and genetically modified (GM) crop components raises serious ethical, cultural and safety concerns.

• Grains: India allowed low-duty grain imports under the US pressure previously, with detrimental effects. Maize is crucial for crop diversification in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, and is essential for the growing poultry sector. Current domestic maize production meets demand, but duty-free imports could lower prices to ₹2,250 per quintal, below the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of ₹2,400 (2025-26 season), threatening the viability of 8-9 million maize farmers and potentially introducing genetically modified maize. Similarly, India’s zero-duty policy for wheat in 2016 resulted in a record import of 5.9 million tonnes in 2016–17 impacting the domestic market prices.3 Reducing import duties again would likely trigger another flood of imports and further depress farm-gate prices. Although the US produces under 2% of the world’s rice, it’s a major exporter, accounting for around 5% of global trade. Under the proposed American Relief Act of 2025, which updates the 2018 Farm Bill, rice subsidies for large US exporters are projected to jump by up to 187%.4 This boost could let US rice be exported at artificially low prices, helping US agribusinesses regain ground in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, traditionally strong markets for India and Thailand. Lowering import duties on rice in India, coupled with a shrinking export market, could negatively impact farm-gate prices due to increased competition from imports and reduced export opportunities. This scenario could create a psychological effect where farmers anticipate lower prices, even if actual market conditions haven’t fully materialized, leading to a decrease in farm-gate prices.

• Edible Oils (Soybean Oil): The US is the third-largest exporter of soybean oil. India, once self-sufficient in edible oil, now imports nearly 70% of its needs due to anti-farmer trade policies. On May 31, India halved the import duty on crude palm oil, soybean oil, and sunflower oil—from 20% to 10%5—citing inflation. This duty cut, ostensibly made in the name of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), primarily benefits large importers who play a key role in crude edible oil imports and processing. While Trump supports American agribusinesses, India’s leadership must defend its small-scale producers, who feed this country. India has the capacity to produce more edible oil, and reducing import duties undermines domestic cultivation, benefiting corporations at the expense of our farmers.

• Fruits and Nuts: In 2017–18, the import of US apples reached a record of over 7 million boxes. After the import duty was increased, imports dropped to just 50,000 boxes in the 2022–2023 (September–August) season. However, following a reduction in import duty, imports during the first three months of the next season increased 40-fold, as reported by one newspaper.6 In 2024, India imported US apples worth $37.9 million. The import of tree nuts (almonds and walnuts) increased from ₹6,232.25 crore in 2019–2020 to ₹9,482.41 crore in 2024–25, indicating that the reduction in import duty poses a serious threat to Himalayan growers.

• Pulses: India reduced the import duty on pulses during the G20 meeting. As a result, in 2024–25, pulse imports reportedly reached 68.74 lakh tonnes—nearly double the 36.33 lakh tonnes imported in 2023–24.7 Any further reduction in import duty on chickpeas and lentils will flood the Indian market with the US imports.

• Cotton: India is a leading cotton producer, yet it continues to import from the US. A record ₹2,384 crore worth of cotton was imported in 2018–19. Imports were worth ₹68.07 crore in 2023–24 but surged to ₹273.41 crore in 2024–25—a 300% increase reportedly due to China closing its market to US Cotton due to the trade tensions8. With the US subsidies covering 74% of production costs, any reduction in import duty could severely impact Indian cotton farmers.

• Poultry: After India lost a dispute at the WTO, poultry product imports from the US began in 2018. In 2017–18, imports stood at 572 tonnes worth $4.17 million. This rose to 797.73 tonnes, valued at $5.45 million, in 2018–19. These imports mainly consist of frozen chicken legs. In the US, poultry is handled not by small farmers but by large corporations. They grow broilers to 3.5–4 kg to obtain 1 kg of breast meat for domestic consumption, exporting the remaining parts—mostly everything except the fillet. Any reduction in import duties under trade negotiations could be devastating for India’s poultry sector. The impact would extend to soybean and corn farmers as well, since the poultry industry is the largest consumer of corn and soya meal. With over ₹1,10,000 crore invested in the poultry sector—over 70% of it through bank loans—any disruption could also seriously affect the banking sector.

• Rubber Farmers: The US is one of the biggest exporters of synthetic rubber. Synthetic rubber imports have seriously impacted the farm-gate price of natural rubber in India. India imported ₹1,556.54 crore worth of synthetic rubber and synthetic rubber products from the US in 2017-18 and ₹1,490.73 crore of synthetic rubber in 2018-19. If India reduces the import duty on synthetic rubber from the US, it will have a serious impact on rubber farmers.

• Sugar: The US imports raw sugar and exports processed sugar. If India signs a trade agreement with the US, the latter will import raw sugar from Brazil, process it in the US, and then export it to India, impacting our domestic sugar industry.

Threat of Transgenic Produce:
For Indian farmers (and organic farmers in particular), the most critical issue is that much of the American agricultural products are transgenic. Import of any such transgenic products into India, be it corn, soy, canola, cotton, or apples, are unacceptable to us due to concerns about biosafety, especially regarding herbicide-tolerant and glyphosate-tolerant crops.

Unfair Competition and Trade Injustice
The USA is actively threatening our farmers’ livelihoods at the WTO by objecting to the modest support provided by our government to food producers through public procurement, citing violations of WTO rules. This is despite the glaring lack of a level playing field. The US Farm Bill 2019 alone allotted $867 billion as a subsidy for American farmers, whereas an OECD study indicates that the aggregate Producer Support Estimate to Indian farmers was a negative 14% over 2000-2016. The ratio of investment in agricultural infrastructure in India and the US is on the order of 1:100,000 dollars. With such massive subsidies and infrastructure investments, the US agribusinesses have significantly lower production costs and higher competitiveness. The trade injustice faced by our farmers is stark and unacceptable.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in the Agricultural Sector
We are also concerned about the implications for our seed sovereignty. The US trade agreements often include clauses that threaten farmers’ rights to save and exchange seeds, which could lead to the domination of our seed markets by the giant seed corporations. The government will undoubtedly face widespread farmer protests if India proceeds with any violations to farmers’ rights in the form of IPR regime changes that curtail farmers’ seed rights at the behest of American interests.

We urge you not to proceed with any trade deal with the USA that involves agriculture and threatens our farm livelihoods, specifically requesting that you refrain from signing any Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in this sector. Instead, we ask for your immediate attention to resolve outstanding issues with the USA at the WTO, particularly regarding its agricultural subsidies, which undermine India’s support for our farmers while protecting its own substantial subsidies.

If the Indian government moves forward with trade deals that overlook critical issues affecting our farmers, movements like ours will be compelled to intensify our protests against such anti-farmer policies. However, we are hopeful that the same sentiment that led India to wisely withdraw from the RCEP trade negotiations will prevail in this case as well. We earnestly urge you to ensure that no trade deal (not even an interim one) is negotiated or signed, now or in the future, that is detrimental to our farmers’ interests.

Protecting our farmers, ensuring food sovereignty, atmanirbharta, and maintaining the integrity of our rural economy must take precedence over any trade agreement that could jeopardize these vital interests. We hope you will consider our request seriously and take the necessary steps to safeguard the future of Indian agriculture.

Sincerely,

Yudhvir Singh

Indian Coordination Committee for Farmers’ Movements (ICCFM)