Agri Exports

Agri Exports

Subject: Economy

Section: External sector

Context: Srilanka on restricted category

India’s exports of agricultural products, including marine and plantation products, for 2021-22 hit a record at $50 billion. That was up 20% on year.

Concept:

The Indian government has been encouraging agricultural exports to meet an ambitious target of $60bn by 2022.

Traditionally, Basmati rice is one of the top export commodities. However, now there is an unusual spike in the export of non-basmati rice. In 2020-21, India exported 13.09 million tonnes of non-basmati rice ($4.8bn), up from an average 6.9 million tonnes ($2.7bn) in the previous five years.

Indian buffalo meat is seeing a strong demand in international markets due to its lead character and near organic nature. The export potential of buffalo meat is tremendous, especially in countries like Vietnam, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries shows that the contribution of agricultural and processed food products in India’s total exports is 11%.

Top 5 Agricultural Export Products($US Billion)

Agri export Initiatives:

• Agriculture and processed food production export Development Authority (APEDA) is an apex body that promotes export trade of agricultural products in India.  Set-up by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry under APEDA Act 1985.

APEDA is mandated with the responsibility of export promotion and development of the scheduled agricultural products. Some of the initiatives of APEDA:

• Hortinet: An integrated traceability system covering 40-plus vegetables. It provides Internet based electronic services to the stakeholders for facilitating farm registration, testing and certification of Grape, Pomegranate and Vegetables for export from India to the European Union in compliance with standards.
• A traceability System for Basmati rice (a registered GI product).
• Grapenet – a web based certification and traceability software system for monitoring fresh grapes exported from India to the European Union.
• FarmerConnect portal to help farmer producers’ organisations, cooperatives and exporters. This helps them to create profiles and post their sale offers on the web platform. Exporters can also post their enquiries or needs, and view matching sale offers.
• Virtual Trade Fair -A meeting place for exhibitors, visitors, exporters and industry to exchange information on new products and establish new partnerships.
• SaaS model: Hybrid solution combining its traditional web-based SaaS model for its stakeholders, augmented by an authentic, private Blockchain layer for further data security and authentication.

• Other Agencies-Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), Tobacco Board, Tea Board, Coffee Board, Rubber Board and Spices Board to boost the exports of agricultural produce.
• Agriculture Export Policy in 2018-Agriculture Export Policy, 2018 was launched to double the agri exports from present $ 30 bn to $ 60 bn by 2022 and $ 100 bn thereafter, and integrate the farmers with global chains.
• Transport and Marketing Assistance for Specified Agriculture Products– The scheme aims for assisting the international component of freight handling and marketing of agricultural products.
• 100% FDI is allowed in the following activities of agriculture through the automatic route.