Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has set up a Farmer Connect Portal on its website for providing a platform to Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) to interact with exporters. Over 800 FPOs have been registered on the portal so far.
The Agri Export Policy (AEP) was announced in 2019 with an objective of doubling the export and ensuring doubling of farmers’ income. To achieve this objective, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has been adopting a focused approach for ensuring greater involvement of the State governments for effective implementation of the AEP. Throughout the year APEDA held a series of meetings with the State Government officials and other stakeholders for the preparation of State Action Plan which included all essential components like production clusters, capacity building, infrastructure and logistics and R & D and budget requirements for the implementation of AEP.
Several rounds of discussions were held with Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Ministry of Food Processing Industries and other agencies under Line Ministries for seeking the inputs for formulating a strategy to increase exports and address the existing bottlenecks in the trade.
Many States have nominated Nodal agency and Nodal officer. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Punjab, and Karnataka have finalised the State Action Plan and other States are at different stages of finalisation of the action plan, according to a PIB release.
State level Monitoring Committees have been formed in many of the States. Cluster visits have been made by APEDA Nodal officers to the product clusters at Jalandhar (Potato), Jodhpur (Isabgol), Banaskantha (Dairy products), Sangli (Grapes), Solapur (Pomegranate), Nagpur (Orange), Chittoor (Mango), Theni (Banana), Salem (Poultry products), Indore (Onion), and Chikkaballapur (Rose onion).
A Market Intelligence Cell was set up in APEDA and the activity of dissemination of e-market intelligence reports comprising detailed market analysis, international trade issues, current scenario of the interest to Indian exporters in important markets and statistical information started fromNovember25, 2019. All e-reports are available on APEDA website https://apeda.gov.in. Till now 27 reports have been disseminated.