New Delhi: Right at the heels of its endeavour to double farmers’ income by 2022, the NDA Government — which has already considerably hiked support prices for major crops — is all set to unveil a liberalised National Agriculture Export Policy, whose crux is to double country’s farm exports to $60 billion in the next five years.
Highly placed sources said that the Prime Minister’s Office has given its go ahead to it and the draft policy is likely to be placed before the Cabinet next week.
Sources in the know informed this newspaper that the policy, which after extensive review has been cleared by the PMO, is likely to call for curbing frequent export bans, by encouraging greater high value added agricultural exports. By doing so, India would be looking to be placed among the top 10 agriculture exporters of the world by 2022.
The draft policy, which has been in the works for some time now, was fast tracked by the PMO, as the Government wanted to expedite it finalisation before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Currently India’s high-value and value-added agriculture produce in its agriculture export basket is less than 15 per cent compared to 25 per cent in the US and 49 per cent in China, official sources said. Therefore the thrust of the proposed agriculture export policy is to open up exports of such products and in the process, increase penetration of Indian products, especially perishables, in newer markets, they added.
Deregulation of processed and organic food items and their greater export will be the key thrust of the policy, as the Government wants to boost the country's agricultural growth, which after witnessing a five-fold growth between 2004-05 and 2013-14, had slid in the past four years.
From $8.7 billion in 2004-05, agricultural exports in India had grown to $42.6 billion in 2013-14.
Traditionally India's agriculture export policy has been restrictive, in the sense that it has often practiced controlled trade of farm produces so that domestic prices remain under control and inflation can be checked.
The draft policy sends out a positive signal to the international commodity markets that processed agricultural products and organic products will not be brought under any export restrictions.
It also outlines creation of export-centric clusters and some of the proposed clusters are that for bananas, pomegranates, mangoes, grapes, litchis, apple, tomato, mint, ginger, chillies and potatoes.
Another focus of the policy is on promotion of "Produce of India", infrastructure and logistics to support agricultural exports, establishment of strong quality regimen, self-sufficiency and export-centric research & development. This, sources said, is on the lines of "Make In India" policy of the NDA Government.
