The Commerce Ministry is planning to come out with an agricultural export policy soon, according to Suresh Prabhu, Union Commerce Minister.

Speaking at the inauguration of the new amenity building of the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (Campco) Ltd at its chocolate factory in Puttur (around 60 km from Mangaluru) on Sunday, he said the policy draft is ready. It will be put up on the website in a few days after which the policy will be formulated. He said that farmers, who are usually affected by imports, should get a chance to export also. These days farmers are not only affected by middlemen but also by import of different commodities. Black pepper growers, who were affected by the imports, had approached him recently. Following this, the Ministry had decided to solve their problems within just four hours, he said. Apart from this, the government had recently invited buyers from 45 countries to Delhi to provide a platform for farmers to meet buyers from various countries.

Rubber policy On the requests of rubber growers to come out with a separate policy for the commodity, Prabhu agreed that this was needed to improve the condition of growers in the country.

The Minister said work has begun on this front and had asked his office to look into this matter.

Stating that spices and many other commodities are facing various problems, he said the Ministry has started working on preparing a package for them.

“We are in the process of identifying each agricultural commodity as a separate problem. We are working out a package for each of their problems,” he said.

Lauding Campco, he said multinational chocolate makers are keen on partnerships with the farmers’ cooperative Campco to make use of the processing facility in its factory.

This shows the quality and strength of a farmers’ cooperative. He said that there is a need for many more cooperative institutions in different parts of country modelled on Campco. Today there is a need to set up cooperatives, strengthen them, and take them to the global scale, he added.

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