NEW DELHI: The lifting of economic sanctions on Iran has brightened the prospects of agriculture product exports to that country.
Despite domestic challenges, India has the potential to export fruits, vegetables and basmati rice to Iran.
Speaking to BusinessLine, V Shankar, Managing Director of Rallis India, said deficient rain in the last two years has put huge stress on farmers, with commodity prices dropping along with fall in output, a rare phenomenon in any business.
Given the current situation, farmers can definitely tap into export potential to Iran, if the Centre provides little support to bring down the cost of cultivation, he said.
Fruits and vegetables are good diversification for farmers as they consume less water and can be grown in 90 days, as compared to other crops.
Export markets follow stringent quality norms with low pesticide residue and in case of rejection, farmers are hit badly as they have to incur high cost of cultivation and transportation.
“India can export all fruits including grapes, mangoes, pomegranate besides basmati rice, but globally commodity prices have fallen sharply. The high value agriculture export, if it becomes a reality, can bring big relief to farmers,” he said.
Incidentally, Rallis India works closely with farmers growing grapes in Nashik. Grapes are grown over 4 lakh acres in Maharashtra at Nashik, Sangli, Pune and Solapur. Last season, the crop was affected because of unseasonal rain and hailstorm. This year around, farmers fear the sudden drop in temperature in Nashik to impact overall production. Vinod Ahuja, President of Basmati Rice Farmers and Exporters Development Forum, said Iran displaced Saudi Arabia as one of the largest importers of Basmati rice from India, before the economic sanctions were imposed.
Iran used to import about 1 million tonne of basmati rice, and farmers in Punjab and Haryana switched from growing other crops to Pusa 1121 variety, but burned their fingers after Iran stopped buying directly from India after the sanctions, he said. India exports about 3.5 million of basmati rice annually.
Along with other commodities, the price of Basmati has fallen sharply to $897 a tonne between April and November from $1,352 a tonne registered in the same period last year. Till recently, India exported Basmati rice through Dubai.
Ahuja said opening up of any new market is always good farmers but given the high cost of cultivation and unpredictable climatic conditions has made farming a difficult task.
