Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) chairman Abhishek Dev said India was on course to make its organic agro products increasingly visible across the global market.
He was speaking at the BioFest ’25 recently, a conclave of organic farmers and domestic and global buyers of organic produce, organised by International Competence Centre For Organic Agriculture, (ICCOA), a knowledge and learning centre for all aspects of sustainable and organic agriculture.
‘’India is getting really prepared for participating in international organic foods markets, even stronger,’‘ Mr. Dev said.
The country currently exports organic food produce worth ₹6,000 crore to ₹7,000 crore, mostly to the U.S, Europe, and the Middle East, while the domestic market is pegged at ₹3,000 crore.
APEDA has projected that India’s organic produce exports would cross ₹20,000 crore in the next three years, while as per ICCOA predictions, the country’s organic food exports would touch ₹50,000 crore by 2034.
ICCOA Executive Director Manoj Kumar Menon said: “We want to put our weight behind APEDA to achieve its exports goal and also our exports goal.” According to Mr. Menon, in 2004, ICCOA’s inception year, the country had only 45,000 hectares of land under certified organic cultivation and currently India has the world’s largest areas under organic production. “Last 20 years have seen a quantum growth in the area under cultivation, from 45,000 hectares of land to 1.8 million hectares of land and 2.5 million hectares of farmland is currently in the process of getting converted to organic farms,’‘ he elaborated, emphasising the growing focus on organic farming.
He further said ICCOA was started as a knowledge and resource centre for the organic sector when the organic farming movement had just begun in India. Its growth through the years has been concurrent with the organic sector in the country and in the last over two decades it worked with all ecosystem players comprising farmers, traders, research and academic institutions, policy makers and governments.
ICCOA currently works across 28 States across the country addressing the needs of over 2.6 lakh organic farmers.