Apedas' Capacity building of FPOs for direct exports; But how?

ATM News Network: With Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) emerging as aggregators of farm produce, the Agriculture and Processed Food Export Development Authority (APEDA) has started focusing on capacity building of these organisations to help them export directly.

The positive contribution of FPOs and their support to China has led to positive momentum in agriculture and food exports. FPOs and FPCs are also acting as direct sourcing centres and groups. Also, exporters are finding it easier to source directly from FPOs and FPCs. Apeda is working to increase their capacity and help them to export directly, said Apeda president M. Angmuthu.

Thousands of FPOs and FPCs have been created in various states in recently. The government plans to creating 10,000 FPOs by 2024. We aim to train more than 1000 FPOs to become direct exporters by March 31 this year. RCMC (Certificate of Membership with Registration) will be issued, along with IEC (Importer-Exporter Code) documents. So that they can export directly, Angmuthu said.

So far, about 701 FPOs/FPCs have been trained by APEDA in the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The contribution of FPOs/FCPs can be seen in increasing the demand for exports of agricultural and food products from India. The trained FPOs will export coarse grains, horticultural products and GI products, Angmuthu said.

Apeda has formulated a robust strategy to promote exports of bulk grains and their value-added products to achieve a target of US$ 100 million by 2025. As part of its strategy to promote bulk exports, Apeda has also launched a comprehensive global marketing campaign that assesses India's potential. Accordingly, the e-Catalog lists 30 importing countries and 21 millet-producing states.

India exports agricultural products to more than 200 countries. It is currently the eighth-largest exporter of agricultural products. Exports of agricultural products monitored by Apeda increased by 16 percent to $17.435 billion during the April-November period this fiscal. Last year the export figure was 15.072 billion dollars. Apeda's exports in 2021-22 were $24.74 billion.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by ATM staff and is published from a web feed.)

(Source: Businessline.com)