After the first COVID wave in March 2020, when exports went down badly, the financial year 2021 brought some much-needed relief to exports and was a welcome relief. The revival signs held renewed promise for an industry battered by the pandemic’s effects.
The good thing was that FY21 saw the export of a host of new agri-products, adding diversity to India’s export basket. Despite the COVID curbs and logistic bottlenecks at play, the country saw an upward trend in the export of agricultural and processed food products in April-October FY21.
Estimates by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI & S) showed that the overall export of products under the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) increased from $10,157 million in April-October 2020 to $11,651 million in April-October 2021.
There are about a dozen debutants in the export basket, starting from Tripura’s jackfruit and Kanpur’s jamun to Assam’s red rice and Burmese grapes.
Besides these, GI-certified Jalgaon bananas were exported to Dubai in June and King Chilli from Nagaland, also referred to as bhoot jolokia, was exported to London via Guwahati for the first time in July.
Chairman M Angamuthu says he forestalls 10-15% growth in new agri products in the coming year. “With this, product diversification and demand for newer products is seen. Some of the products were not being utilized in the optimum way earlier. “We are expecting more demand for millet-based products and other nutri-cereals in the times ahead,” he added.
Parenthetically, a lot of these new products were rich in nutrients and had immunity-boosting properties, making them surge in popularity during the pandemic. In May, for instance, the first consignment of millets grown in the Himalayas was exported to Denmark, and this has expanded the export opportunities to other European countries as well.
The exports would also support thousands of farmers who are getting into organic farming. Millets are gaining a lot of popularity globally because of their high nutritive values and also because they are gluten-free.
In October, APEDA facilitated exports of the first consignment of various nutrient-rich products derived from jackfruit, passion fruit, and nutmeg (jaiphal) that were sourced from farmers in Thrissur, Kerala, to Melbourne.
The statistics show a preference for organic foods. India’s export of organic food products rose by more than 51% to Rs 7,078 crore during April-February (2020–21) from the corresponding period of the previous financial year.
As a matter of fact, a larger export basket helps in furthering the development of rural India. This leads to a more secular development as more farmers come into the ambit of a developed supply chain