In 2016, the Centre aimed toward doubling farmers’ revenue by 2022 when the nation completes 75 years of its independence.
Export-led agri-processing clusters current a giant alternative for Indian farmers. At the moment, India’s agri-export share within the international market is a mere 2.2 per cent and this must be raised to 10 per cent by 2030.
Regardless of being the second-largest producer of fruit and veggies on the planet, India has didn’t faucet the worldwide markets. Elevating exports of fruit/greens, processed cereals, dairy and apiculture merchandise, poultry and fishery would add to farmers’ revenue.
An Agricultural Export and Farmer’s Revenue Fee (AEFIC) must be shaped consisting of farmers, agricultural economists and agri-scientists to discover methods of leveraging expertise within the farm and agro-processing sectors.
As per the federal government’s Doubling Farmers’ Revenue Committee report, the benchmark family revenue in 2015-16 was ₹8,059 monthly. Doubling this revenue and taking inflation into consideration,. the goal revenue by 2022 ought to be ₹21,146/ month.
On the halfway level of the six years, NSSO estimated month-to-month revenue of farm households at ₹10,218 in nominal phrases. In the meantime, the price of agricultural inputs like fertilisers has virtually doubled over the past six years, whereas the MSP of wheat has gone up from ₹1,525/quintal in 2015-16 to ₹2,015/quintal in 2021-22, a 32 per cent improve. MSP of paddy has elevated from ₹1,410/quintal in 2015-16 to ₹1,940/quintal in 2021-22, up 38 per cent.
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and UP have promoted export-led farm processing clusters. It’s pertinent to say right here that French Fry vegetation in Gujarat have reworked India from an importer to one of many main exporters now.
Equally, exports of mango pulp, particularly of Totapuri and Dasheri mango varieties, have grown.
The Lucknow (UP) and Anantapur (AP) clusters for bananas, the Sangli, Nashik and Pune (Maharashtra) clusters for grapes, and the Nagpur cluster for oranges have performed a giant function in driving farm incomes and investments.
Punjab’s rice cultivation is changing into ecologically unsustainable and the State must diversify into fruits and vegetable processing. It should undertake the ‘One District One Product’ mannequin, the place infrastructure in district is created to spice up exports.
Punjab’s 30 lakh tonnes annual yield of potato can lead processing clusters to make sure good-looking returns to growers. An annual yield of 14 lakh tonnes of Mandarin orange (kinnow) will be explored as juice-processing clusters in addition to frozen peas clusters.
Initiatives similar to ‘Innovation Mission’ can nurture the native ecosystem of start-ups, farmers, non-public gamers and the federal government to create environment friendly worth chains to drive farm incomes.
A cargo export centre with each cluster must be arrange as worth chains develop and cater to worldwide markets. Compliance with meals security requirements and norms have to be adhered to.
The way in which ahead
A majority of India’s agri-export commodities like rice, meat and spices are low-value uncooked or semi-processed merchandise.
There should be a renewed deal with processed agricultural merchandise. The Centre and State governments want to think about the event of Dairy Export Zones (DEZs) and Natural Product Export Zones (OPEZs) for growing exports in a WTO-compatible method.
Agricultural exports must besupported by processing infrastructure, institutional backup, standardisation, packaging, storage, logistics, and connectivity to ports and airports.
Linking of farmer producer organisations with export-oriented meals parks for producing processed cereals, fruits, greens, fish and shrimps must be explored.
The author is Vice-Chairman of Punjab Financial Coverage and Planning Board, and Vice-Chairman of Sonalika Group
Printed on
August 15, 2022
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