FAO official for policy shift to up farm exports

Our Economic Bureau

New Delhi, Dec 3: The domestic farm exports have a competitive edge in Basmati rice, glutinous rice, duram wheats, medicinal, essential oil & aromatic plants and botanicals, aquaculture, cut flowers, tropical and sub-tropical fruits, vines and organic food, said Mr RB Singh, assistant director-general and regional representative for Asia-Pacific region, Food and Agriculture Organisation office at Bangkok.

Speaking at a discussion on ‘towards a competitive agriculture’ at the India Economic Summit here on Monday, Dr Singh said appropriate strategies should be developed to boost farm exports. Quoting a report by the World Bank, he also called for a 25 per cent increase in investment on agriculture research, clean drinking water supply, primary education, rural roads and irrigation by 2020.

“These investment will boost the competitiveness of Indian agriculture,” he said. He also said the government should continue investing in these five key areas and forge an alliance with the public, private sector and the NGOs. Dr Singh said currently allocation per an agricultural worker is about $10, against $32 in Southeast Asia and $900 in Near East. OECD countries subsidise agriculture at the rate of $1 billion per day whereas FAO’s total budget works out to only 40 cents per hungry person in the world per day. Dr Singh regretted that in global agro exports, India stands in no match to Thailand, a country with only 62 million people.