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Slashing food tariffs: NITI's push for US mkt access may hurt food security

In the 1960s and early 1970s, India faced food shortages and depended on US food imports under PL-480 - a US law that allowed surplus food to be sold or donated to countries like India Ajay Srivastava Listen to This Article A recent NITI Aayog paper recommends sweeping tariff cuts on a range of agricultural imports from the United States — including rice, dairy, poultry, corn, apples, almonds, and genetically-modified soya — as part of the proposed India-US Free Trade Agreement. The paper, titled 'Promoting India-US Agricultural Trade under the new US Trade Regime,' was published in May. We look at its key recommendations and what they could mean for India's food security. Let's start with rice — India's staple food across states. Rice: The paper suggests scrapping import tariffs on US rice, as India already exports large amounts