Cabinet approves India's first agriculture export policy, seeks to double farmers' income by 2022

In a bid to woo farmers months ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha election 2019, the Union Cabinet on Thursday approved India's first Agriculture Export Policy which is expected to double farmers' income and agricultural export to USD 60 billion by 2022. Briefing the media on the government's export policy, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said, "This is in line with the Prime Minister's vision of doubling farmers income by 2022. In less than one year, we have raised our agricultural export to $37 billion from $30 billion and we are sure to double it to $60 billion by 2022".

"Today, only three products -- rice, marine products and meat -- constitute about 52 per cent of our agricultural exports. Therefore, we need to diversify and will work on that. We will promote organic, ethnic and indigenous products in a substantive manner," Prabhu added.

Glad to see that the Union Cabinet has cleared Agriculture Export Policy, the first ever policy to have been brought out by Govt of India till date.Incidentally, this is also my first policy announcement after taking charge as Commerce & Industry Minister. #AgriExportPolicy2018

— Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) December 6, 2018

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Under the newly introduced Policy, export of commodities such as tea, coffee and rice will get a boost, increasing the country’s share in global Agri-trade. Apart from the agricultural exports, it will focus on modernising infrastructure, standardisation of products, streamlining regulations and curtailing knee-jerk decisions.

The implementation of the policy, which is supposed to remove all kinds of export restrictions on organic products, will entail an outlay of Rs 1,400 crore.