AGRICULTURE : The agricultural sector is India’s most vulnerable sector. With the livelihood of around 650 million people in the country being dependent on agriculture, India’s interests in the negotiations on agriculture are mainly defensive. India’s offensive interests lie in reducing the heavy subsidisation in developed countries. India’s interests in agriculture have always been dictated by the need to safeguard millions of small farmers who operate the majority of farm holdings in the countryside. Agriculture determines the very social fabric of India and is more a way of life and means of livelihood than a question of commerce. Further, India has 25 agro-climatic zones that, on the one hand, provide diversity to crop cultivation and, on the other, make crop rotation within a farm extremely difficult. Given these complexities in agriculture, India has essentially defensive interests in agriculture. India’s bound rates and applied agricultural tariffs are among the highest in the world.