As Indian agricultural product exports begin to make inroads in the global market, especially leading in non-basmati rice exports, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) is playing a significant role, accounting for 49 per cent of the overall shipments of these products.
Founded on February 13, 1986, APEDA began with agricultural exports to the tune of $0.6 billion. Last fiscal, its shipments of agricultural products totalled $20.67 billion and expanded its footprints to 205 countries.
APEDA was set up under an Act by Parliament by the Government under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry once it realised the importance of agriculture and processed food products exports.
The progress made by APEDA in agricultural exports has not come easily. “Notwithstanding several logistical challenges faced in the global trade of commodities, India’s agricultural and processed food exports have grown at a steady pace in the last decade,” says M Angamuthu, Chairman, APEDA.
Break-up of export basket
Today, the authority has become a cornerstone of the Government’s success in promoting exports of agricultural products. Of APEDA’s share in agricultural product exports, cereals and fresh horticulture items comprise 59 per cent, cereal preparations and miscellaneous processed items 23 per cent and animal products 18 per cent.
For the current fiscal, APEDA has been set an export target of $23.7 billion and by January-end it has met over 70 per cent of it at $17.2 billion. The rest of the target will be met within the stipulated time, says the APEDA Chairman.
In furthering the cause of agricultural exports, APEDA has promoted IT-enabled activities for ease of doing business in the promotion and development of exports from India. It has undertaken initiatives such as paperless office (re-engineering, digital signatures, electronic payment facility), APEDA mobile app, phase-wise delivery of online services, monitoring and evaluation, uniform access, and virtual trade fair to make governance more efficient and effective.
GI-tagged, ethnic products
The authority has been focussing on the promotion of exports of locally-sourced Geographical Indication (GI) products besides indigenous, ethnic agricultural products to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for “vocal for local” and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’.
APEDA says it has identified new products and export destinations and the trial shipments have been facilitated accordingly. Of the 150 GI tagged agricultural products till now, over 100 registered ones fall under the category of APEDA scheduled products (cereals, fresh fruits and vegetables, processed products, etc).
Last and this fiscal, dragon fruit, patented village rice, jackfruit, jamun, Burmese grapes, dehydrated mahua flowers and puffed rice are some of the ethnic and GI tagged products shipped out of the country. GI varieties of mango, GI tagged Shahi litchi, Bhalia wheat, Madurai malli, Mihidana, Sitabhog, Dahanu Gholvad Sapota, Jalgaon banana, Vazhakulam pineapple and Marayoor jaggery are among these, says Angamuthu.
Strategy reports
In order to give further fillip to exports, country specific agri-export strategy reports have been prepared for 60 countries to tap the potential. A Market Intelligence Cell has been set up in APEDA and it has begun putting out E-market intelligence reports comprising detailed market analysis.
Till now, 27 reports have been prepared 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, fruits and vegetable seeds, moringa, fox nut, fruit juices, mango pulp, potato flakes and cereal preparations.
APEDA has set up a farmer connect portal on its website for providing a platform for farmer producers organisations (FPOs) or farmer producer companies (FPCs), Cooperatives to interact with exporters. Around 3,295 FPO/FPCs and 3,315 exporters have been registered in the portal so far, he said.
APEDA has also integrated a Blockchain solution in its GrapeNet traceability platform, which is a web-based certification and traceability software system for monitoring fresh grapes exports to the European Union. The Blockchain solution, called APEDA Trust Chain, helps track all the details of the export consignment, right down to the location of the vineyards.
In the past decade, exports of agricultural and processed food products under the APEDA basket rose to ₹1,53,049 crore in 2020-21, from ₹42,437 crore in 2010-11, as per the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics data.
Non-basmati rice contribution
During the April-December period of the current fiscal, APEDA exported agricultural and processed food products worth $17,465 million (₹1,29,782 crore).
Non-basmati rice, India’s top export item among the many agricultural and processed food product exports in the APEDA basket, contributed close to one-fourth of the total exports in 2020-21. The top three products in the APEDA export basket in 2020-21 were non-basmati rice (23.22%), basmati rice (19.44%) and buffalo meat (15.34%). These products together account for 58 per cent of total shipments.
Over the years, APEDA has been handling issues concerning product safety and global promotion for all its product categories, compromising over 800 tariff lines. With the agriculture awareness about environmental and food safety issues in the importing countries rising and food norms and consumer preferences changing constantly, APEDA has been sensitizing its trade exporters on export requirements. I
Considering the importance of food safety and traceability required by the importing countries of developed economies, APEDA has taken a number of initiatives in the area of quality development such as preparation of standards, procedures for identified potential products, development of residue monitoring protocol, recognition of laboratories and implementation of traceability systems.
Other initiatives
In fact, APEDA pioneered its first traceability system for the export of grapes to EU countries in the year 2005-06, says Angamuthu. It has now been extended to peanut (Peanut.net); organic products (Tracenet) and meat products (Meat.net). Traceability systems for more products are under development, the APEDA chairman said.
APEDA, which has been designated as secretariat for National Programme for Organic Production, has been able to achieve export growth over the past two years despite disruption of supplies during Covid-19 pandemic.
APEDA organised a host of activities such as organising a virtual buyer-seller meet, showcasing Indian agri-exports strength at the Virtual trade fair platform, synergy with ministries and convergence of various schemes run by line ministries and concerned organisations.
“The visionary approach, aggressive and consistent efforts of APEDA have enabled India to position itself as a consistent and quality supplier of agri products,” said Angamuthu.