Bumper Output, Easier Access To Trading Nations Led To Surge In Agricultural Exports In 2021-22

Affordable prices and bumper harvest have fuelled India’s agricultural exports

India’s agricultural exports reached Bradmanesque proportions in 2021-22 as they crossed $50 billion mark as rice, wheat, pulses, cereals, fruits & vegetables as well as meat supplies to other countries rose significantly during the fiscal.

Experts have attributed booming exports to the fact that India mainly trades with countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, which are closer and therefore easier to trade with.

In addition to this, the fact that there has been a bumper harvest of the abovementioned commodities in the past two years, has also given the leeway to raise exports.

Also due to affordable prices of these commodities, Indian exports have picked up as demand is huge, market watchers opine.

As government started distributed food under its Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana to the poor after the onset of Coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, demand for key commodities like wheat and rice got muted, leading to fall in their prices.

This gave the government the opportunity to export them to nations where demand was high.

Subsequently India’s export of all these commodities has seen a huge jump year-on-year basis.

 According to Commerce Ministry data, rice export was the major forex earner at $9,654 million during 2021-22, as it grew 9.35 per cent from corresponding fiscal’s $8,829 million.

Wheat exports too touched an all-time high of $2,118 million in 2021-22, growing by a huge 273 per cent from 2020-21 when it was $567 million.

Cereals’ exports saw a growth of 53 per cent at $1,083 million in 2021-22 over corresponding period’s $705 million.

Export of pulses reported a growth of 34 per cent touching $358 million in 2021-22 from $265 million in 2020-21.

Dairy products saw a steep growth of 96 per cent as they stood at $634 million in 2021-22 against $323 million in 2020-21.

Export of poultry products rose to $71 million in 2021-22 from $58 million in the previous fiscal.

Sheep and goat meat export was up by 34 per cent at $60 million in 2021-22 from $44 million in the previous year.

Fruits and vegetables exports were up by 12 per cent to touch $1,676 million in 2021-22 against $1,492 million in 2020-21

India’s major exporting destination in 2021-22 were Bangladesh, UAE, Vietnam, USA, Nepal, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran and Egypt.