Agri export policy likely to be cleared in next few days, says commerce minister Suresh Prabhu

New Delhi: The Cabinet may approve India’s Agriculture Export Policy in the next few days, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said on Friday. Stable trade policy regime, reforms in the APMC Act, streamlining of Mandi fee and liberalisation of land leasing norms are some of the key recommendations of the draft agriculture export policy, which seeks to double the shipment to over $60 billion by 2022. “We have already come out with Agriculture Export Policy, which should be approved by the Cabinet in the next few days because inter-ministerial consultation, which takes some time, is already in advanced stage and once we do that there can be huge opportunities,” Prabhu said while addressing a FICCI event. [caption id=“attachment_3966355” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of commerce minister Suresh Prabhu. AFP[/caption] Prime Minister Narendra Modi said last month a new agriculture export policy will be unveiled soon to boost farm income as the government is on track to achieve the target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. Prabhu said the thrust now is to promote India’s exports and to identify opportunities not only in large markets but in areas where there are immediate opportunities. The commerce ministry had come out with the draft agriculture export policy earlier this year. The draft policy has pitched for greater involvement of states, improvement in infrastructure and logistics, and promotion of R&D activities for new product development for the upcoming markets. The ‘National Agriculture Export Policy’ is formulated in line with the vision to double the farmers’ income and increase the share of agricultural exports from present about $30 billion to over $60 billion by 2022. It also aims to boost high value and value added agricultural exports, focusing on perishables; to provide an institutional mechanism for tackling market access barriers and deal with sanitary and phytosanitary issues; and to become one of the top 10 exporting countries of agricultural products and strive to double India’s share in world agri exports.