India's farm exports rise 23.24% in March-June 2020 despite pandemic

Agricultural exports rose 23% to Rs 25,553 crore in March-June this year despite the disruption caused by the pandemic.
“We have sharpened our focus in exporting value added products and healthcare food products. We also want to deepen our penetration in Gulf countries, which is already a strong market for India, though presently India caters to only 10-12% share of their total imports,” said a senior agriculture ministry official.

He said the ministry had formed a product market matrix containing list of products that can be expanded in new geographies and list of known markets where new products can introduced.

“Agricultural exports as a percentage of India’s agricultural GDP has increased from 9.4% in 2017-18 to 9.9% in 2018-19. While the agricultural imports as a percentage of India’s agricultural GDP has declined from 5.7% to 4.9% indicating exportable surplus and decreased dependence on import of agricultural products in India,” he said.

WTO’s trade statistics show that share of India’s agricultural exports and imports in the world agriculture trade in 2017 was 2.27% and 1.90%, respectively.

“India holds second position in production of fruits and vegetables. It exports 8.23 lakh tonnes of fruits worth Rs 5,638 crore and 31.92 lakh tonnes of vegetables worth Rs 5,679 crores annually. However, world trade of fruits and vegetables is US$ 208 billion and India’s share is miniscule. We need to focus on export of horticulture produce,” the official said.

The agriculture ministry has created product specific Export Promotion Forums promote eight agricultural and allied products like Grapes, Mango, Banana, Onion, Rice, Nutri-Cereals, Pomegranate and Floriculture

“Forums will be in active touch with the producers, exporters and other relevant stakeholders of respective commodities and hear their problems, and facilitate, support and provide solutions to them. They will regularly study the market for respective commodities on a global basis,” the official said.