India exported over a dozen new agri-products

Samak chawal is quite popular in north India during the festival of Navratri. It is deceptively called chawal (rice), but is actually barnyard millet. For lakhs of devotees, it is the perfect substitute for roti, dal and rice that they eschew for nine days and nights. Now, it is finding fans in Denmark.In a first-of-its-kind export, a 4,000 kg consignment of barnyard millet and ragi (finger millet), grown along the Ganga in Uttarakhand, was flown to Denmark in May. The importer from the Scandinavian country got excited by certain features — one, these are organic; two, these are grown in the Himalayan region; three, these lesser-known millet varieties have high nutritive value and, four, these are gluten-free.“Ragi has very high calcium content while samak ke chawal or jhingora, as it is called in the hills, is rich in iron. Health-conscious Europeans seem to be looking for such unusual items. Based on our new orders, I expect our firm to export some 100 metric tonnes this fiscal,” says Pankaj Agarwal, who sells these Himalayan millets under the brand name Just Organik.Himalayan millet is just one of a dozen agriproducts that India has exported for the first time since March this year. Other first-timers include Assam’s red rice to the US, and Burmese grapes to Dubai; Tripura’s jackfruit to the UK; Kanpur’s jamun and Bhagalpuri zardalu mango to London; Kashmir’s mishri variety of cherries to Dubai; and apples from Himachal Pradesh to Bahrain.Grown in states across India, these newly exported products have a commonality: they are rich in nutrients and are promoted as immunity boosters, which are a big draw for customers in Europe and West Asia during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to five exporters whom ET spoke to, the demand for such items could surge in the coming days.The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), GoI’s agri-export arm, seems to be highly optimistic of expanding this new product range. APEDA Chairman M Angamuthu tells ET: “While exporting rice, we have to compete with Thailand or Vietnam. For buffalo meat, we face competition from Brazil. But for products such as Himalayan millet, Northeast jackfruit or mahua from Chhattisgarh, we have no competition at all.Our target is to promote 100 such new products that are known for their nutritive value.” He adds that more and more health-conscious people in the West are willing to try these products.Sample this. An entrepreneur from Assam, Kaushik Baruah, found out some years ago that leteku (better known as Burmese grape), which grows in the wild in Assam, is commercially cultivated in Bangladesh’s Sylhet province with the sole purpose of exporting it to Dubai. He saw that the demand for the fruit, which is rich in vitamin C and iron, surged exponentially after the outbreak of the pandemic last year. Baruah’s Kiega EXIM immediately tied up with APEDA and engaged a large number of labourers to pluck the fruit from the wilds of Udalguri in north Assam before exporting two consignments in June and July, totalling about 1,500 kg. The airfare — Rs 150 per kg from Guwahati to Dubai via Delhi — turned out to be costly as wholesalers in Dubai were not willing to pay him more than Rs 260 per kg. According to his calculation, his company can make substantial profits only in two ways — either it has to play the volume game or sell leteku in European markets where it can fetch a better price.“There is demand for leteku in London but UK regulations do not accept fruits grown in the wild. We now plan to engage farmers to commercially cultivate it. But we will have to wait, flowering will take four-five years,” he says, adding that the Assam variety is smaller but tastier than the one commercially cultivated in Bangladesh.Another item from Assam that was exported for the first time recently was bao dhaan, the iron-rich red rice that is cultivated in the Brahmaputra Valley and is an integral part of traditional Assamese diet. In March, 40 metric tonnes of red rice were sent to the US by an exporter in Sonepat, Haryana.Other first-time export items from Northeast India include fresh jackfruit from Tripura (1.2 metric tonnes in May and 1.6 metric tonnes in July) to London, and another shipment of 200 kg of fresh king chilli, a GI tagged item from Nagaland, to London via Guwahati airport last month.R Shankaran, strategic adviser to Chennai-based Jaycee Organics, says the company recently exported five herbs and medicinal plants from Tamil Nadu, packaging them as cures for ailments such as diarrhoea, diabetes, hypertension, ulcer and infertility. While melia azedarach from the Western Ghats was exported to Canada, balloon vine and vitex negundo were sent to Germany.The export of agri-products, particularly highly perishable ones, comes with multiple challenges. Kamaldeep Singh, founder of Kanpur-based export company Buddy Overseas, found there was a huge demand for jamun in Canada. But as he exported 10 consignments, in June and July to the UK, Oman and the UAE — the first such export from India — he avoided Canada as there was no direct flight from New Delhi. “Jamun is believed to control blood sugar and that’s why it has been a sought-after fruit in many countries during this pandemic. But the problem is it is highly perishable. I incurred losses on two consignments to London two months ago due to flight delays,” he says, adding that he had to coordinate the logistics in such a manner that the fruits were plucked in Kanpur in the morning, packed and transported to Lucknow airport by 4 pm to be despatched on a flight to Delhi and loaded on a London-bound aircraft on the same night. He says an auction for jamun takes place at the Heathrow airport, London, before the fruit gets displayed in the city’s retail stores.Farmers in Kanpur usually sell jamun for Rs 35-40 per kg in the local mandi but they receive about `70 per kg from an exporter. In London, the price jumps to `800 per kg, mainly due to high transport costs. “We exported about 5,000 kg of jamun this season (June-July). Our target is to increase exports by 10 times next season, tapping newer markets such as Italy and Greece and also breaking the monopoly of Pakistan in this trade,” says Singh.Another critical factor in the logistics is to ensure that there is enough supply if the demand rises. In the case of non-perishable items, exporters can ask farmers to produce more than what they usually cultivate if the former anticipates a massive rise in demand in the near future. For example, farmers in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli, where some blocks are set aside for organic farming, were told at the beginning of the current season (March-August) to con centrate on two crops — soybean and barnyard millet, says one farmer.85722738“We were told we would receive 25% more than the local mandi rate.Also, exporters have paid us one-fourth of the approximate value in advance,” says Laxman Singh Bisht, a 47-year-old millet farmer in the region, over the phone.Bisht owns about 1.5 acres of land where he has been farming barnyard millet with the hope that the ongoing season will fetch him more income.More exports mean more income for farmers.But the export of these newer products comes with unusual bottlenecks.85722755On August 11, a consignment of 9 metric tonnes of dehydrated mahua flower — a first such export ever from India — was ferried by road from Korba district in Chhattisgarh to JNPT port in Mumbai before it was to be shipped to France. Popular among the tribals in Central India, the mahua flowers are used for making liquor, medicine and syrup. The flowers in the France-bound consignment were collected mainly by the tribal people from the forests of Korba, Kathghora, Surguja, Pasan and Pali, among others, in Chhattisgarh.A fortnight later, as this story is being written, the consignment is stuck with the customs in the port. “There has been a delay, first because of a certification issue (as liquor is made out of mahua) on the state border between Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. That was settled after intervention from higher officials. The consignment again got stuck with the customs at Nhava Sheva (JNPT),” a commerce ministry official said on August 25 on the condition of anonymity.Export of these products clearly needs better coordination among sarkari agencies, both at the Centre and in states, for hassle-free transportation. Otherwise mahua flowers and export dreams could get entangled in red tape.

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