India is working towards building sea protocols for several fresh fruits and vegetables such as bananas, mangoes, pomegranates and jackfruit, intending to boost their exports via ocean routes. Additional Secretary of the Commerce Ministry, Rajesh Agrawal, explained that the majority of the exports are done through air routes owing to lower volumes and different ripening periods. The protocol includes understanding voyage time, scientifically understanding the ripening of these commodities, their harvest time, and the training of farmers. These protocols will vary for different products.
The majority of Indian agri exporters use air cargo and due to high freight costs, there is a decrease in competitiveness of these products. According to Agrawal, this is a major challenge. He added: “To start with, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), along with other stakeholders, has developed these protocols for bananas. We did dummy testing in a container, and now, for actual testing, the first container has been shipped to Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We are confident that it will be successful, and once this is done and importers start accepting it, the volumes will increase in a substantial way.”
Source: abplive.com