West Bengal aims to double exports of agriculture & allied products by 2030

West Bengal is aiming to double exports of agricultural, horticultural and animal-based produce by 2030, and has introduced several enabling policies to fructify the objective, a top state government official said on Thursday.

The government has identified export clusters across the state to ensure focused processing and higher production, he said.

There is a huge potential of doubling exports. We need to channelise opportunities and make it happen. The state has done exceedingly well in the agriculture and allied sector, including fisheries, horticulture, food processing and animal resource. A lot of enabling policies have also been brought out by the government, Chief Secretary H K Dwivedi said at the Bengal Global Business Summit here.

Dwivedi also unveiled the Agriculture Export Policy of West Bengal-2022' during a special session on international trade on the second and concluding day of the summit.

The major exported products from Bengal include rice, potato, vegetables and fruits to countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Singapore, Malaysia, UK, Italy, Germany and Sweden, another state government official said.

According to the policy document, the state's target is to increase its contribution to India's agriculture and allied products in respect of exports to Rs 20,000 crore in 2028-29 from Rs 6,800 crore in 2018-19.

The small landholding pattern and low farmer awareness in West Bengal has often led to limited volumes of different varieties of multiple crops with little or no standardisation. Export-oriented cluster development across the state will be the key to ensuring surplus produce with standard physical and quality parameters to meet export demands, the second official said.

Some of the export clusters identified are Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar, Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Nadia, Bankura and Howrah districts, he said.

The West Bengal government also plans to establish an Export Facilitation Centre, which will operate from the Office of the Paschimbanga Agri Marketing Corporation Ltd. The centre will handhold and educate budding exporters and facilitate their registration with different government organisations and other institutions, among other functions, he added.