Affordable prices and bumper harvest have boosted India’s agricultural exports
India’s agricultural exports reached Bradmanesque proportions in 2021-22 as they crossed the $50 billion mark in the form of rice, wheat, pulses, cereals, fruits and vegetables as well as meat supplies to other countries, including There was a significant increase during the financial year.
Experts attribute the fast-growing exports to the fact that India mainly trades with countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, which are closer and therefore easier to do business with.
Apart from this, the bumper crop of the above mentioned commodities in the last two years has also allowed the exports to increase.
Market watchers believe that cheaper prices of these items have led to a boom in Indian exports as the demand is very high.
As the government began distributing food to the poor under its Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, demand for key commodities such as wheat and rice plummeted, driving their prices down .
This gave the government an opportunity to export them to countries where demand was high.
Thereafter, India’s exports of all these items have seen a huge jump on a year-on-year basis.
According to commerce ministry data, rice exports were the major foreign exchange earner of $9,654 million during 2021-22, as it grew 9.35 percent from $8,829 million in the same fiscal year.
Wheat exports also touched an all-time high of $2,118 million in 2021-22, a growth of 273 percent from 2020-21 at $567 million.
Cereal exports grew 53 per cent to $1,083 million in 2021-22, up from $705 million in the same period.
Pulses exports registered a growth of 34 per cent to $358 million in 2021-22 from $265 million in 2020-21.
Dairy products saw a whopping 96 per cent growth in 2021-22 as against $323 million in 2020-21, as they stood at $634 million.
The export of poultry products increased to $71 million in 2021-22 from $58 million in the previous fiscal.
Sheep and goat meat exports grew by 34 percent to $60 million in 2021-22 from $44 million the previous year.
Exports of fruits and vegetables grew by 12 per cent to $1,676 million in 2021-22 from $1,492 million in 2020-21.
India’s major export destinations in 2021-22 were Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, USA, Nepal, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran and Egypt.