Agriculture Export Policy 2018

The Union government in December 2018 approved an export policy for agriculture, lifting all restrictions on organic and processed food, to help the government’s efforts to double farmers’ income by 2022.

Major objectives of the policy targets include-

to double agricultural exports from present US$ 30 Billion to US$ 60 Billion by 2022 and reach US$ 100 Billion in the coming years with a stable trade policy regime.

• to diversify our export basket, destinations and boost high value and value added agricultural exports including focus on perishables.
• to promote novel, indigenous, organic, ethnic, traditional and non-traditional agri products exports.
• to provide an institutional mechanism for pursuing market access, tackling barriers and deal with sanitary and phyto-sanitary issues.
• to strive to double India’s share in world agri-exports by integrating with global value chain at the earliest.

Important measures on which the policy focuses, are -

Policy measures to propel structural changes.

• A Stable Trade Policy Regime which is immune to local domestic inflation. For example - adhoc ban or imposition of Minimum Export Price (MEP) on onions breaks export supply chain and affects India’s image as reliable supply partners and affects price realization for Indian Produce.
• Reforms in APMC Act and streamlining of mandi fee
• Robust infrastructure that handles pre-harvest and post-harvest agricultural products, storage, distribution and processing facilities.
• Holistic approach to boost exports.
• Greater involvement of state government in Agriculture Exports
• Identification of nodal state department/ Agency for promotion of agriculture export
• Inclusion of agricultural exports in the State Export Policy
• Infrastructure and logistics to facilitate agricultural exports
• Institutional mechanism at Union level, State level and cluster level to support exports