Trade Reforms and Crisis in India’s Plantation Agriculture: Reflections on Tea and Rubber Plantation Sectors P K Viswanathan, Amita Shah Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad, India Outline Context of the study Objectives, data and methods Growth in plantation sectors: India vs major countries Trade reforms and impacts on two plantation sectors Policy perspectives: revamping plantation sectors I The study In the backdrop of the ‘crisis’ affecting India’s plantation sector in recent years Triggering factors of the ‘crisis’ – both exogenous and endogenous Exogenous: Asian financial crisis, casualties of the changing external trade regimes in the post-WTO scenario: removal of trade barriers enabling easy market access through NAMA (level playing field with windows of opportunities… for whom? ) Endogenous: ‘crisis’ opens up an array of issues, challenges and internal contradictions in the sectors…needing thorough revamping and interventions Little empirical evidence as ‘how the crisis spread far and wide and with what micro level implications on the plantation sector and its sustainable future’ I Backdrop India’s plantation sector, viz tea, coffee, natural rubber, cashew and spices, though is insignificant in the country’s agri trade (