By Rashme Sehgal Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent statement claiming India's "commitment to an early positive conclusion of the Doha Development Round" has farmer lobbies worried. With WTO mini-ministerial meetings expected mid-July, farmer leaders warned that a U-turn in India's stated agricultural policies would adversely impact 800 million farmers. The key discord issue for Indian farmers is that the US provides $360 billion subsidy for its farmers. Senior trade officials from the US, EU, Japan and Australia have extensively debated on how developing countries open up their markets to agricultural products, but no mention has been made on the removal of agricultural subsidy commitments by these nations. Cheap subsidised imports pose a serious food and livelihood security threat to Indian farmers who gathered in the city and urged the government not to negotiate on reducing tariffs on agricultural products and instead urged the imposition of quantitative restrictions to protect our farmer from unfair competition. "Suicides by cotton farmers in Vidarbha is linked to the massive subsidies that the American cotton farmers get and the drastic reduction in import duties by India," warned Vijay Jawandia of the Shetkar Sanghtana of Maharashtra. Malla Reddy, Andhra Pradesh Raitu Sangha president, pointed out: "Cheap import of edible oils at low duties has destroyed millions of livelihoods of oil seed farmers in the drylands of Andhra Pradesh." Similarly, Father Mathew Vadakemury of the Indian Farmers' Movement, Kerala, said: "Isn't it ironical that Vasco da Gama came to look for spices in Kerala, and today Kerala is importing pepper from Vietnam and Sri Lanka?" Kerala is currently swamped by cheap imports of spices, coconut, tea and coffee, which has destroyed its indigenous agriculture. Basavaraj Ingin from Gulbarga, representing the Karnataka Red Gram Growers' Association, and K. Puttannaiah, president of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, shared the serious impacts of the removal of quantitative restrictions on pulses, coffee and the silk industry of Karnataka. Similarly, Yudhvir Singh, president, Bharatiya Kisan Union, Delhi unit, wanted the Indian government to remember that each state in India was larger than many of the countries in the European Union. The country cannot negotiate issues like special products without taking the concerns of these states into account," Mr Singh pointed out. The current draft that is under negotiation has drastically reduced the number of special products for developing countries to eight