India must be the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables, and the exports too are rising fast, but they still remain abysmally low when compared with production.
Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia has blamed the country's infrastructure for low exports. He says, "The low share in exports vis-a-vis production is because of high domestic consumption, fragmented food supply chain, small land holdings, lack of appropriate infrastructure, high cost of logistics, difficulties in meeting global standards, high international transportation costs, etc."
In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Scindia said fruits and vegetables exports had risen by 17 % till January 2008-09 fiscal, compared with the whole of the previous financial year.
India has shipped abroad 20.26 lakh tonnes of vegetables and fruits till January 2008-09 against 17.24 lakh tonnes during the entire 2007-08 fiscal.
While vegatables have accounted for 16.76 lakh tonnes of the outbound shipment till January 2009, fruits contributed 3.49 lakh tonnes.
The exports of both fruits and vegetables, in value terms, has risen to Rs 2,661.81 crore from Rs 2437.33 crore during the review period.
Bangladesh and the UAE remained India's top export destinations in this segment. One reason for India's low exports could be the increasing number of rejection from the European countries for quality reasons. The rejection of Indian food items in the western countries is high as the manufacturers apparently are unable to cope with the stringent international laws.
Second, due to appropriate cold storage, wastage of food is high in India. Food processing may provide a viable solution provided the right investment goes into it, but till then India would have to chalk out some workable solution for its staggering exports.
Source : Fnbnews.com