The government will soon establish specific agriculture export zones well placed with airports and docks in India. With this, the government aims at increasing the exports of India’s farming produce globally.
Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce and Industry and Railways while inaugurating the Biofach 2018, country’s leading trade fair dedicated to organic food sector said, “Government has also drafted a new national agriculture export policy to support the export of organic products. The policy has been made jointly by the ministries of commerce, agriculture, and food processing.”
The Minister further told that “the Commerce Ministry will also establish several centers in states to help organic growers to promote and sell products in the international market, where their demand is high.”
He added that “India produces around 600 million tonnes of agricultural as well as horticultural products yearly. The new agriculture policy has been revealed with the vision to double the farmers' incomes and boost the share of agricultural exports from the current $30 billion to over $60 billion by 2022.”
Prabhu emphasized that “The policy will also help in checking food and vegetable wastage, which is around 30% at present, by increasing exports and food processing.” He said, “Government is in touch with many countries including Oman, UAE, and few others to boost export of agriculture products to these nations as they need to import the large quantity of food products.”
Paban K Borthakur, chairman of Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), that has organized the Biofach 2018 said “Over 5,000 delegates, including exporters, retail chain industry, processors, certification bodies and Indian as well as foreign producers are participating in Biofach 2018 to discuss and have direct feel of the Indian organic products that includes tea, spices, basmati rice, honey, dry fruits, coffee, cereals, vegetables, processed foods and medicinal plants.”
