The exports of the essential Agri commodities for the period April to September 2020 has increased by 43.4% to Rs 53626.6 crore as compared to Rs 37397.3 crore in the same period last year despite the Covid 19 crisis.
The major commodity groups showing positive export growth during April-Sept, 2020 over the same period last year include Groundnut (35%), Refined Sugar (104%), wheat (206%), Basmati Rice (13%) and Non-Basmati Rice (105%).
India’s agricultural export of essential agricultural commodities during September 2020 has been of Rs 9296 crore against the export of Rs 5114 crore during September 2019, showing an increase of 81.7 percent on month to month basis (MoM).
Furthermore, the balance of trade during April-September 2020 has been significantly positive at Rs 9002 Crore as against the trade deficit of Rs. 2133 during the same period in 2019.
In order to boost agri exports, the Government announced the Agriculture Export Policy, 2018 which inter-alia provides for cluster-based approach for export-centric farming of cash crops like fruits, vegetables, spices, etc. whereby clusters for specific agri products are identified across the country and focused interventions are carried out in these clusters.
Eight Export Promotion Forums have been set up under the aegis of APEDA to boost the export of agriculture and horticulture products. The EPFs are created on Banana, Grapes, Mango, Pomegranate, Onion, Dairy, Rice Basmati and Rice Non-Basmati. The EPF are making concerted efforts to identify, document particulars of, and reach out to stakeholders across the entire production and supply chain of export for increasing these exports significantly to the global market, through various interventions.
Recently, the Government has also announced Agri Infra Fund of Rs 1 lakh crore to improve agri business environment which shall promote agri export in due course.
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