New Delhi: The Agri Export Policy was announced last year with an objective of doubling the export and ensuring doubling of farmers’ income. In order to achieve this objective, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has been adopting a focused approach for ensuring greater involvement of the State governments for effective implementation of Agri Export Policy (AEP). Throughout the year APEDA held a series of meetings with the State Government officials and other stakeholders for the preparation of State Action Plan which included all essential components like production clusters, capacity building, infrastructure and logistics and R & D and budget requirements for the implementation of AEP. Several rounds of discussions were held with Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Ministry of Food Processing Industries and other agencies under Line Ministries for seeking the inputs for formulating a strategy to increase exports and address the existing bottlenecks in the trade.
Many States have nominated Nodal agency and Nodal officer. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Punjab and Karnataka have finalized the State Action Plan and other States are at different stages of finalization of the action plan.
State level Monitoring Committees have been formed in many of the States. Cluster visits have been made by APEDA Nodal officers to the product clusters at Jalandhar (Potato), Jodhpur (Isabgol), Banaskantha (Dairy products), Sangli (Grapes), Solapur (Pomegranate), Nagpur (Orange), Chittoor (Mango), Theni (Banana), Salem (Poultry products), Indore (Onion) and Chikkaballapur (Rose onion). The roadmap for cluster development in the clusters notified under AEP was prepared to address the identified interventions during the cluster visits. As a result of cluster visits by APEDA, the cluster level committee has been constituted in the States viz. Potato in Punjab, Isabgol in Rajasthan, Pomegranate, Orange and Grapes in Maharashtra and Banana in Tamil Nadu.
APEDA has organised a number of seminars and meetings for the implementation of Agri Export Policy throughout the year. A workshop on the role of state nodal agencies in agriculture exports was organised in New Delhi on 3rd September, 2019 where majority of the states actively participated for brainstorming on implementation of AEP in States.
An MoU was signed with National Cooperative Development Corporation to include Co-operatives for their active role in AEP. A Farmer Connect Portal has also been set up by APEDA on its website for providing a platform for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) to interact with exporters. Over 800 FPOs have been registered on the portal.
Buyer Seller Meet (BSM) cum Workshops between exporters and FPOs were organized in association with the State Nodal agency at Ujjain (M.P)., Mehboobnagar, Mahbubabad, Sangareddy (Telangana), Kandhamal (Odisha), Chitradurga (Karnataka), Shillong (Meghalaya), Shimla (H.P), Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh), Kolkata (West Bengal), Agartala (Tripura), Nagpur, Sangli (Maharashtra) and Dehradun (Uttarakhand).
A Market Intelligence Cell was set up in APEDA and the activity of dissemination of e-market intelligence reports comprising detailed market analysis, international trade issues, current scenario of the interest to Indian exporters in important markets and statistical information has been started from 25th November 2019. All e-reports are available on APEDA website https://apeda.gov.in. Till now 27 reports have been disseminated for mango, basmati rice, non-basmati rice, groundnut, grapes, gherkins, dehydrated onion, pomegranate, banana, potato, buffalo meat, swine meat, fresh cut flowers, wine, egg, dairy products (SMP & cheese), biscuits, jaggery, millets, vegetable seeds, moringa, makhana, fruit juices, mango pulp, potato flakes and cereal preparations.
