Last year, Maharashtra mango farmers had much to rejoice, as their produce successfully reached US shores in the summer. The consignment marked the first successful shipment of mangoes to the US via sea. Mangoes from India have sporadically found their way to the US, but only via air. The aforementioned shipment in question was a much-needed inflection point in the export of fresh fruits and vegetables from India.
As one of the world’s largest producers of agricultural and food products, India occupies a leading position in the global trade of marine products. Yet, its total agri-export basket accounts for little over 2.5 percent of world agri-trade. This points to a glaring gap in realizing the true export potential of India’s Agrarian economy.
A study mandated by APEDA some years ago revealed many challenges in the country’s agri exports and supply chain, especially in the case of fresh fruits and vegetables. It included an inefficient and unorganized backward integration model with our farmers. That resulted in quality and longevity issues of the produce, not to mention the stricter norms enforced by importing nations concerning production standards/traceability to farms, etc.
As a result of the sustained efforts of the Department of Commerce and bodies such as APEDA, activation of clusters such as the Varanasi cluster for fresh vegetables, Nagpur cluster for oranges and Krishna and Chitoor clusters in Andhra Pradesh for mangoes, have solved transportation/logistics issues of these land-locked production areas. Exports took place from many clusters like these for the first time, with produce finding their way from farms to supermarkets in the Middle East and even South Korea. This was a contributing factor to India’s unprecedented growth in exports in 2020-21.
Source: manufacturingtodayindia.com
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