Tunisia's state grains agency has issued an international tender to purchase an estimated 75,000 tonnes of durum wheat, 100,000 tonnes of soft wheat and 75,000 tonnes of animal feed barley, European traders said on Tuesday.

 

The tender closes on Wednesday, Feb. 2, they said.

 

The grains can be sourced from optional origins.

 

The durum is sought in three consignments of 25,000 tonnes for shipment between Feb. 25 and March 30 depending on origin supplied.

 

The soft wheat is sought in four 25,000 tonne consignments for shipment between March 20 and April 25, also depending on origin used.

 

The barley is sought in three 25,000 tonne consignments for shipment between March 5 and April 15 depending on origin.

 

Traders had been anticipating new purchase tenders to be issued by importers after a sharp fall in Paris Euronext wheat futures on Monday. 

 

Tunisia’s last reported durum, soft wheat and barley purchase was on Jan. 5. 

India slashed its export tax on raw hides and skins of buffalo to 30% from 40% earlier, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday.

 

The South Asian country is the world's biggest exporter of buffalo meat and industry officials have been requesting New Delhi to abolish the export tax.

 

'Exports are unlikely to pick up even after the reduction as the 30% tax makes us uncompetitive amount. The government should remove all taxes on the exports,' said Fauzan Alavi, vice president at the All India Meat & Livestock Exporters Association.

 

There is good demand for Indian buffalo skins from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, but the export duty makes India uncompetitive, Alavi said.

Meghana Narayan and Shauravi Malik, co-founders, Wholsum Foods Pvt Ltd (makers of millet-based children’s food brand Slurrp Farm) said that the Budget has put the grain in focus, especially by way of branding of millet products nationally and internationally.

 

With 2023 designated as the International Year of Millets, the awareness around the health benefits of millets and also their environment-friendly cultivation methods will only continue to grow. This will strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the space of these nutricereals in India.

 

A new wave of entrepreneurship is sweeping the nation and the move will allow numerous young Indians to bring their ideas to life and build brands for the new-age Indian consumer, they said.

 

'Wholsum Foods and Slurrp Farm are proud to be a part of both India’s startup and millet stories and we look forward to playing our part in this next chapter of India’s growth', they added.

India to witness GDP growth of 8.0-8.5 per cent in 2022-23, supported by widespread vaccine coverage, gains from supply-side reforms and easing of regulations, robust export growth, and availability of fiscal space to ramp up capital spending.

 

The Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey 2021-22 in Parliament today, which states that the year ahead is well poised for a pick-up in private sector investment with the financial system in a good position to provide support to the revival of economy. The growth projection for 2022-23 is based on the assumption that there will be no further debilitating pandemic related economic disruption, monsoon will be normal, withdrawal of global liquidity by major central banks will be broadly orderly, oil prices will be in the range of US$70-$75/bbl, and global supply chain disruptions will steadily ease over the course of the year.

 

The Survey says, the above projection is comparable with the World Bank’s and Asian Development Bank’s latest forecasts of real GDP growth of 8.7 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively for 2022-23. As per the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) growth projections released on 25th January, 2022, India’s real GDP is projected to grow at 9 per cent in both 2021-22 and 2022-23 and at 7.1 per cent in 2023-24. This projects India as the fastest growing major economy in the world in all these three years.

 

Referring to First Advance Estimates, the Survey states that the Indian economy is estimated to grow by 9.2 per cent in real terms in 2021-22, after a contraction of 7.3 per cent in 2020-21. This implies that overall economic activity has recovered past the pre-pandemic levels. Almost all indicators show that the economic impact of the 'second wave' in Q1 was much smaller than that experienced during the full lockdown phase in 2020-21, even though the health impact was more severe.

 

Dwelling on the sectoral aspects, the Survey states that Agriculture and allied sectors have been the least impacted by the pandemic and the sector is expected to grow by 3.9 per cent in 2021-22 after growing by 3.6 per cent in the previous year. The area sown under Kharif and Rabi crops, and the production of wheat and rice has been steadily increasing over the years. In the current year, food grains production for the Kharif season is estimated to post a record level of 150.5 million tonnes. Moreover, procurement of food grains under the central pool accordingly maintained its rising trend in 2021-22 along with minimum support prices, which augur well for national food security and farmers’ incomes. Importantly, the strong performance of the sector was supported by Government policies that ensured timely supplies of seed and fertilizers despite pandemic related disruptions. It was helped by good monsoon rains as reflected in reservoir levels being higher than the 10-year average.

 

According to Survey, the industrial sector went through a sharp rebound  from a contraction of 7 per cent in 2020-21 to an expansion of  11.8 per cent in this financial year. The manufacturing, construction and mining sub-sectors went through the same swing although the utilities segment experienced a more muted cycle as basic services such as electricity and water supply were maintained even at the height of the national lockdown. The share of industry in GVA is now estimated at 28.2 per cent.

 

The Survey states that the services sector has been the hardest hit by the pandemic, especially segments that involve human contact.  This sector is estimated to grow by 8.2 per cent this financial year following last year’s 8.4 per cent contraction. It should be noted that there is a wide dispersion of performance by different sub-sectors. Both the finance /Real Estate and the Public Administration segments are now well above pre-COVID levels. However, segments like Travel, Trade and hotels are yet to fully recover. There has been a boom in software and IT-enabled services exports even as earnings from tourism have declined sharply.

 

The Survey added that total consumption is estimated to have grown by 7.0 per cent in 2021-22 with government consumption remaining the biggest contributor as in the previous year. Government consumption is estimated to grow by a strong 7.6 per cent surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Private consumption is also estimated to have improved significantly to recover 97 per cent of corresponding pre-pandemic output level and it is poised to see stronger recovery with rapid coverage in vaccination and faster normalization of economic activity.

 

According to the Survey, Investment, as measured by Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) is expected to see strong growth of 15 per cent in 2021-22 and achieve full recovery of pre-pandemic level. Government’s policy thrust on quickening virtuous cycle of growth via capex and infrastructure spending has increased capital formation in the economy lifting the investment of GDP ratio to about 29.6 per cent in 2021-22, the highest in seven years. While private investment recovery is still at a nascent stage, there are many signals which indicate that India is poised for stronger investment. A sturdy and cleaned-up banking sector stands ready to support private investment adequately.

 

On the Exports and Imports front, the Survey states that India’s exports of both goods and services have been exceptionally strong so far in 2021-22. Merchandise exports have been above US$30 billion for eight consecutive months in 2021-22, despite many pandemic related global supply constraints. Net services exports have also risen sharply, driven by professional and management consulting services, audio visual and related services, freight transport services, telecommunications, computer and information services. From a demand perspective, India’s total exports are expected to grow by 16.5 per cent in 2021-22 surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Imports also recovered strongly with revival of domestic demand and continuous rise in price of imported crude and metals. Imports are expected to grow by 29.4 per cent in 2021-22 surpassing corresponding pre-pandemic levels. Resultantly, India’s net exports have turned negative in the first half of 2021-22, compared to a surplus in the corresponding period of 2020-21. But current account deficit is expected to remain within manageable limits.

 

Further, the Survey points out that despite all the disruptions caused by the global pandemic, India’s balance of payments remained in surplus throughout the last two years. This allowed the Reserve Bank of India to keep accumulating foreign exchange reserves, which stand at US$634 billion on 31st December 2021. This is equivalent to 13.2 months of imports and higher than the country’s external debt.

 

The Survey notes that inflation has reappeared as a global issue in both advanced and emerging economies. The surge in energy prices, non-food commodities, input prices, disruption of global supply chains, and rising freight costs stoked global inflation during the year. In India, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation moderated to 5.2 per cent in 2021-22 (April-December) from 6.6 per cent in the corresponding period of 2020-21. It was 5.6 per cent (YoY) in December 2021, which is within the targeted tolerance band. The decline in retail inflation in 2021-22 was led by easing of food inflation. Wholesale Price Inflation (WPI), however, has been running in double-digits.

 

The Survey says that fiscal support given to the economy as well as the health response caused the fiscal deficit and government debt to rise in 2020-21. However, there has been a strong rebound in government revenues in 2021-22 so far. The revenue receipts of the central government during April-November 2021 have gone up by 67.2 per cent (YOY), as against an expected growth of 9.6 per cent in the 2021-22 Budget Estimates over provisional actuals. The tax collections have been buoyant for both direct and indirect taxes and the gross monthly GST collections have crossed Rs 1 lakh crore consistently since July 2021.

 

It adds that on the account of a sustained revenue collection and a targeted expenditure policy by the Government of India, the fiscal deficit for April-November 2021 has been contained at 46.2 per cent of Budget Estimates (BE) which is nearly one third of the proportion reached during the same period of the previous two years (135.1% of BE in April-November 2020 and 114.8% of BE in April-November 2019).

 

The Survey points out that the financial sector is always a possible area of stress during turbulent times. However, India’s capital markets have done exceptionally well and have allowed record mobilization of risk capital of Indian companies. The Sensex and Nifty scaled up to touch its peak at 61,766 and 18,477 on October 18, 2021. Rs 89,066 crore was raised via 75 IPO issues in April- November 2021, much higher than in any year in the last decade. Moreover, the banking system is well capitalized and NPAs seems to have structurally declined. The Gross Non-Performing Advances (GNPA) ratio (i.e. GNPAs as a percentage of Gross Advances) and Net Non-Performing Advances (NNPA) ratio of Scheduled Commercial banks (SCBs) continued to decline since 2018-19. GNPA ratio of SCBs decreased from 7.5 per cent at end-September 2020 to 6.9 per cent at end-September 2021.

 

The Survey expresses that another distinguishing feature of India’s economic response has been an emphasis on supply-side reforms rather than a total reliance on demand management. These supply-side reforms include deregulation of numerous sectors, simplification of processes, removal of legacy issues like ‘retrospective tax’, privatization, production-linked incentives and so on. Even the sharp increase in capital spending by the Government can be seen as both demand and supply response as it creates infrastructure capacity for future growth.

 

There are two common themes in India’s supply-side strategy: (i) Reforms that improve flexibility and innovation in order to deal with the long-term unpredictability of the post-Covid world. This includes factor market reforms; deregulation of sectors like space, drones, geospatial mapping, trade finance factoring; process reforms like those in government procurement and in telecommunications sector; removal of legacy issues like retrospective tax; privatization and monetization, creation of physical infrastructure, and so on. (ii) Reforms aimed at improving the resilience o the Indian economy. These range from climate/environment related policies; social infrastructure such as public provision of tap water, toilets, basic housing, insurance for the poor, and so on; support for key industries under Atmanirbhar Bharat; a strong emphasis on reciprocity in foreign trade agreements, and so on.

 

An important theme that has been discussed through the course of the Economic Survey is that of ‘process reforms’. It is important to distinguish between deregulation and process reforms. The former relates to reducing or removing the role of government from a particular activity. In contrast, the latter broadly relates to simplification and smoothening of the process for activities where the government’s presence as a facilitator or regulator is necessary.

 

The Survey points out that the last two years have been difficult for the world economy on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. Repeated waves of infection, supply-chain disruptions and more recently, global inflation have created particularly challenging times for policy-making. Faced with these challenges, the Government of India opted for a ‘ Barbell Strategy' that combined a bouquet of safety-nets to cushion the impact on vulnerable sections of society and the business sector. It next pushed through a significant increase in capital expenditure on infrastructure to build back medium-term demand as well as aggressively implemented supply-side measures to prepare the economy for the sustained long-term expansion. This flexible and multi-layered approach is partly based on an 'Agile' framework that used feedback-loops, and the monitoring of real-time data.

 

The Survey underlines that Monetary policy since the outbreak of the pandemic was calibrated to provide a cushion and support growth, but carefully controlled in order to avoid the medium term dislocations of excess liquidity. An important aspect of the safety-net was the use of Government guarantees to provide access to financial support to the economy in general and MSMEs in particular. In the last two years, government leveraged an array of eighty High Frequency Indicators (HFIs) representing industry, services, global trends, macro-stability indicators and several other activities, from both public and private sources to gauge the underlying state of the economy on a real-time basis. These HFIs helped policy makers tailor their response to an evolving situation rather than rely on pre-defined responses of a Waterfall framework, which has been the conventional method for framing policy in India and most of the world.

 

In conclusion, the Survey is quite optimistic that overall macro-economic stability indicators suggest that the Indian Economy is well placed to take on the challenges of 2022-23 and one of the reasons that the Indian Economy is in good position is its unique response strategy.

The Economic Survey on Monday pitched for giving a push to the ongoing negotiations for the proposed free-trade agreements (FTAs) as these pacts will help in diversifying the country's export basket and destinations.

 

It added that India has diversified its export destinations in the past 25 years, yet more than 40 per cent of the country's exports is still accounted for by only seven countries.

 

India has been negotiating FTAs with several partners, both bilateral and regional, for the past many years with a view to promote India's exports.

 

'A further push in this direction would help provide the institutional arrangements to, inter alia, diversify both products and destinations,' it said.

 

In a free-trade pact, two countries either significantly reduce or eliminate customs duties on the maximum number of goods traded between them. These pacts help provide a competitive edge to exporters.

 

Trade experts have stated that early conclusion and implementation of these agreements will help in boosting the country's exports.

 

India is negotiating such FTAs with countries including the UK, Australia, European Union (EU), Canada and the UAE. It is also reviewing its existing trade agreements with nations such as Singapore and ASEAN.

 

'Negotiations are complete for agreement with the UAE and at the advance stage with Australia,' the Survey said.

 

It also stated that India's merchandise exports touched USD 301.4 billion during April-December this fiscal.

 

'This shows that India is well on track as far as attaining the export target is concerned,' it said adding that out of an ambitious export target of USD 400 billion set for 2021-22, India has already attained more than 75 per cent.

 

'Sharp recovery in key markets; increased consumer spending; pent-up savings and disposable income due to the announcement of fiscal stimulus by major economies; global commodity price rise and an aggressive export push by the government have bolstered exports in 2021-22,' it added.

 

Initiatives like Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP), Developing District as Export Hub, and production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme will help in pushing the country's exports and manufacturing.

 

The Survey said that owing to the recovery of global demand coupled with a revival in domestic activity, India's merchandise exports and imports rebounded strongly and surpassed pre-COVID-19 levels during the current financial year.

 

The US, followed by the UAE and China, remained the top export destinations in April-November 2021, while China, the UAE and the US were the largest import sources for India.

 

It added that China's share in India's imports has reduced to 15.5 per cent April-November 2021, from 17.7 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year, which reflects increased diversification of India's import sources.

 

Further, it said that a strong rebound in exports and imports have led to an increase in the merchandise trade deficit.

 

It stood at USD 142.4 billion in April-December 2021, compared with USD 61.4 billion in the year-ago period.

 

Talking about global trade, it said that overall, the balance of risks for global trade is tilted to the downside and the biggest downside risk emanates from the pandemic itself, particularly with the resurgence of new variants such as Omicron.

 

In addition to the surge in global inflation, longer port delays, higher freight rates, shortage of shipping containers, shortage of inputs such as semiconductors, with supply-side disruptions being exacerbated by a recovery in demand, pose significant risks for global trade.

 

'Against this backdrop, India's external sector has shown immense resilience during the year, which augurs well for growth revival in the economy,' it added.

 

On services trade, the Survey said India's services exports recorded growth of 18.4 per cent to USD 177.7 billion during 2021-22 (April-December).

 

'This is mainly on account of the top-three computer, business and transportation services that constitute more than 80 per cent of total services exports,' it added.

 

India’s Ambassador to Ireland, Akhilesh Mishra believes there is need for re-imagining the relationship between the countries, with broader and strategic vision. Even though India’s focus has traditionally been on the UK, as far as Europe is concerned, strong cultural and economic ties with Ireland has helped forge bilateral trade worth 1 billion euros and trading services worth 4 billion euros.

 

Sharper focus on the opportunities which Ireland offers to us. It is a country with just 5 million people and 2.3 million workers but has built an economy of close to half-a-trillion dollars. India has a lot to gain in terms of trade. The sectors that look promising are MedTech, pharma, aerospace, MRO in the B2B segment. We can consider introducing joint programmes tailored to meet shortages in Ireland in the education and research segment and also encourage start-ups and performing arts,’ said Mishra.

 

At present, India exports organic chemicals, textiles, medical devices, plastic and rubber amongst other things to Ireland. It imports machinery and mechanical appliances, telecommunications equipment, computer accessories and precision equipment.

 

'With the objective of boosting trade ties, we need to build relations from the ground level. We are reaching out to various line ministries, mayors of various counties, MPs and major business associations in Ireland. After we identify interested Irish entities, we will engage with relevant state governments in India,’ Mishra added.

 

There are around 45,000 Indians in Ireland and 5,000 students. The Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland — Leo Eric Varadkar — has Indian connections. He will become the Prime Minister this year.

 

Ties between India and Ireland date back to 19th century. The Irish played a role in the fields of education, medical science and engineering in India. Ireland’s constitution experts influenced the drafting of India’s constitution. Directives of state policies have been borrowed from the Irish constitution.

 

India has been encouraging Ireland to take part in its flagship programmes like Make in India, Digital India, Clean India. Indian companies in Ireland include Crompton Greaves, Wipro, TCS, Shapoorji Pallonji, Tech Mahindra and others. Irish companies in India include Diageo, Glanbia, Keventer, ICON, Kerry Group, Quinn Property among others.

 

'We would like to focus on virtual connect and consultations between India and Irish parties, first to do due diligence and build understanding before actual, in-person exchange of delegations,’ Mishra said. India can look at Ireland as the country that connects it with the EU and also has proximity with the UK. It also offers trans-Atlantic connectivity with the US and Canada.

Increased focus on agricultural allied sectors such as animal husbandry has helped improve India’s per capita milk availability to 427 grams per day for the year 2020-21, up from 319 grams in 2014-15. The Economic Survey 2020-21, tabled in Parliament on Monday showed that the livestock sector including animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries grew at a CAGR of 8.15 per cent during 2014-15 to 2019-20 (at constant prices). 'It is observed that even the segments like marine products, buffalo meat, tea, coffee and dairy products, which had not performed well during 2020-21, have registered substantial growth during the current year. This augurs well for further diversification and strengthening of agricultural exports in the coming years,' the Survey noted. Per capita availability of meat has increased to 6.52 kg per year in 2020-21 from 5.32 kg per year in 2014-15. Egg availability has improved to 91 eggs per person per year from 62 in 2014-15. The livestock sector is an important subsector of agriculture in the Indian economy, contributing 29.35 per cent (2019-20) in the total agriculture and allied sector gross value added (GVA), up from 24.32 per cent in 2014-15, as per the estimates of National Accounts Statistics (NAS) 2020. The livestock sector contributed 4.35 per cent of total GVA in 2019-20.

 

Other high growth sectors

 

Allied sectors including animal husbandry, dairying and fishing are steadily emerging to be high growth sectors, it said quoting the latest SAS that the livestock sector has been a stable source of income across groups of agricultural households accounting for about 15 per cent of their average monthly income. This is in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Doubling Farmers’ Income which has suggested a greater focus on allied sectors to improve farmers’ income. The Economic Survey 2021-22 also noted that dairy is the single largest agricultural commodity contributing 5 per cent of the national economy and employing more than eight crore farmers directly. India’s milk production has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of about 6.2 per cent to reach 209.96 million tonnes in 2020-21 from 146.31 million tonnes in 2014-15.

The country’s oilseed production has gone up by 43 per cent between 2015-16 and 2020-21.

 

The Economic Survey for 2021-22 said oilseed production in India has steadily increased from 2016-17 onwards. It was showing a fluctuating trend prior to that.

 

The fourth advanced estimates data from the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, which is available in the Economic Survey, showed that oilseed production in the country was at 25.3 million tonnes (mt) in 2015-16. It went up to 31.3 mt in 2016-17, and 31.5 mt in 2017-18 and 2018-19. It picked up further and went up to 33.2 mt in 2019-20, and 36.1 mt in 2020-21.

 

Demand up

 

The Economic Survey also noted that the oil production in India has, however, lagged behind its consumption necessitating import of edible oils.

 

While the edible oil production in the country increased from 6.1 mt in 2015-16 to 7.9 mt in 2019-20, the import of oil increased from 14.9 mt in 2015-16 to 15.6 mt in 2018-19, before coming down to 13.4 mt in 2019-20.

 

The survey noted that as urbanisation increases in developing countries, dietary habits and traditional meal patterns are expected to shift towards processed foods that have a high content of vegetable oil.

 

'Vegetable oil consumption in India is, therefore, expected to remain high due to high population growth and consequent urbanisation. As per the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030, India is projected to maintain a high per capita vegetable oil consumption growth of 2.6 per cent per annum reaching 14 kg/capita by 2030, necessitating a high import growth of 3.4 per cent per annum,' it said.

 

Oilseed Mission

 

Considering the persistently high import of edible oil, increase in oil production has been a priority for the government. It said the government has been promoting the production and productivity of oilseeds through the Centrally sponsored scheme of National Food Security Mission: Oilseeds (NFSM-Oilseeds) from 2018-19 onwards in all districts of India.

 

In August 2021, National Mission on Edible Oils - Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) was launched to augment the availability of edible oil in the country by harnessing area expansion and through price incentives. Under the scheme, for the first time, the government is giving a price assurance to the oil palm farmers for the fresh fruit bunches (FFBs). This will be known as the viability price which will protect the farmers from the fluctuations of the international crude palm oil (CPO) prices, it said.

 

Crude palm oil

 

Mentioning that India has enormous potential for cultivation of oil palm and production of CPO, the Survey said oil palm produces 10-46 times more oil per hectare compared to other oilseed crops. Oil palm has yield of around 4 tonnes oil per hectare.

 

It said the NMEO-OP may be considered a major initiative of the government given the fact that that around 98 per cent of CPO is being imported.

 

At present only 3.70 lakh hectares of area is under oil palm cultivation. The scheme aims to cover an additional area of 6.5 lakh hectares for oil palm till 2025-26 and thereby reach the target of 10 lakh hectares ultimately.

 

The scheme also targets the production of CPO to go up to 11.20 lakh tonnes by 2025-26 and up to 28 lakh tonnes by 2029-30, it said.

Egypt’s state grains buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), bought 420,000 tonnes of wheat in an international tender it said on Friday.

 

The purchase comprised 60,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat, 60,000 tonnes of Russian wheat, and 60,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat for shipment March 5-15, and 120,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat, 60,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat and 60,000 tonnes of Russian wheat for shipment March 16-26, GASC said.

 

GASC did not give further details.

 

European traders said these purchases were made in FOB terms plus freight (ocean shipping) costs with final c&f price, each shipment was 60,000 tonnes:

 

Shipment between March 5-15:

 

-Nibulon Ukrainian $326.00 FOB plus $20.89 = $346.89 c&f

 

-Grainexport Russian $329.65 FOB plus $20.35 = $350 c&f

 

-Ameropa Romanian $329.65 FOB plus $19.75 = $349.40

 

Shipment between March 16-26:

 

-Nibulon Ukrainian $326.00 FOB plus $20.89 = $346.89 c&f

 

-CHS Romanian $329.65 FOB plus $19.75 = $349.40 c&f

 

-Inerco Ukrainian $328.77 FOB plus $21.23 = $350 c&f

 

-Grainexport Russian $329.20 FOB plus $20.35 = $349.55 c&f

 

Offers in the tender were submitted earlier on Friday. In its last tender on Dec. 29, GASC bought 300,000 tonnes of French, Ukrainian and Romanian wheat.

President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday said the country's farm production and procurement increased during 2020-21 crop year despite the pandemic and agricultural exports reached a record level of Rs 3 lakh crore during the same period. In his address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament at the start of the Budget session, Kovind said the government is focusing on making the country self-sufficient in edible oils besides making special efforts to promote organic farming, natural farming and crop diversification.

 

'My government is working continuously to empower the farmers and the rural economy of the country... I would like to give maximum credit to the small farmers of the country for this consistent success and strengthening of the agriculture sector,' he said.

 

Highlighting achievements of the Modi government in the farm sector, the President said despite the pandemic, farmers produced more than 30 crore tonnes of food grains and 33 crore tonnes of horticulture produce in 2020-21 crop year (July-June).

 

The government made record procurement with purchase of 433 lakh tonnes of wheat during the 2021-22 rabi marketing year (April-March) benefiting about 50 lakh farmers.

 

A record quantity of about 900 lakh tonnes of paddy was procured during the 2020-21 kharif marketing (October-September), benefitting 1.30 crore farmers, he added.

 

'Our agriculture exports have also reached a record level due to the efforts of the government. Agricultural exports registered a growth of more than 25 per cent in 2020-21, and have reached nearly Rs 3 lakh crore,' Kovind said.

 

He was referring to crop year 2020-21.

 

Domestic honey production increased by 55 per cent 1.25 lakh tonne in 2020-21 crop year from over 2014-15 due to incentives provided by the government to boost production, he said, adding that honey production are important means of generation new sources of income for farmers.

 

Honey export has also grown by more than 102 per cent as compared to 2014-15, he added.

 

To ensure farmers get access to the right market and remunerative prices, the President said the government has endeavoured to open new avenues of prosperity for the farmers by launching Kisan Rail Seva.

 

'During the corona period, Indian Railways operated over 1,900 Kisan Rails on more than 150 routes to transport perishable food items like vegetables, fruits and milk, thereby transporting about 6 lakh tonnes of agricultural produce,' he said, adding that this is an example of how new avenues can be created from the existing resources if the thinking is innovative.

 

Stating that small farmers who constitute 80 per cent of the farmer-community have always been central to the government, the President said the government has provided Rs 1.80 lakh crore under the PM-KISAN scheme to more than 11 crore farmer families.

 

Under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme, a financial benefit of Rs 6,000 per year is provided to the eligible farmer families, payable in three equal installments of Rs 2,000.

 

'With this investment, the agriculture sector is witnessing major transformations today,' he said, and small farmers of the country have also benefited from the new changes in the crop insurance scheme.

 

More than Rs 1 lakh crore have been given as compensation to about 8 crore farmers since these changes were introduced, he added.

 

Mentioning that the government is also making investments at an unprecedented level for developing infrastructure required near farmlands, Kovind said thousands of projects have been approved under the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund having a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore.

 

In order to ensure self-sufficiency in edible oil, the Modi-government has also launched the National Mission on Edible Oils - Oil Palm with an outlay of Rs 11,000 crore. The government is also making special efforts like organic farming, natural farming and crop diversification, he added.

 

Further, the government is working for rain water conservation. Special campaigns are being implemented for creation of rain water harvesting infrastructure and restoration of traditional water sources in the country.

 

The President said 64 lakh hectares of land with irrigation facilities has also been developed in the country with the help of various projects under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana and Atal Bhu-jal Yojana.

 

The government has also taken forward the plans for interlinking of rivers. Recently, the Ken-Betwa link project to be completed at a cost of Rupees 45,000 crore has also been approved. This project will be helpful in ending the water crisis in Bundelkhand.

 

That apart, Kovind shared that the United Nations has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets and the government willl celebrate next year on a large scale with farmers, Self-Help Groups, FPOs, food industry and the common citizen.