The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has set up an Export Promotion Forum (EPF) to promote exports of dairy products and address various issues in the sector.

The EPF will augment trade and include officials of the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, and Export Inspection Council, according to APEDA Chairman M Angamuthu.

The authority has identified two clusters - Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and Banaskantha in Gujarat - to develop dairy products. Farmers and small dairy owners in these clusters will be given virtual training and aided in capacity building to become exporters, he told BusinessLine .

Moots financial assistance

APEDA has mooted new financial assistance for promoting the export of dairy products. The proposal, pending approval from the Centre, will help dairy plants upgrade their facilities and improve their infrastructure and quality standards besides developing the market to compete globally.

“The financial assistance will be provided towards development of infrastructure facilities, quality and market(s),” said the APEDA Chairman.

The Ministry is making efforts to strengthen the infrastructure for quality milk production, procurement and processing, besides marketing of milk and milk products through dairy development schemes.

These schemes are National Programme for Dairy Development, National Dairy Plan (Phase I), Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme, Support to Dairy Cooperatives and Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund, he said.

Infra development

The Ministry also has the scheme to develop infrastructure under the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund, which is part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, Angamuthu said.

In this scheme, investments by entrepreneurs, private firms, companies, farmers and farmers producers organisations are incentivised to establish dairy processing, “value-addition infrastructure” and animal feed plant, the APEDA Chairman said.

Pointing out that dairy products have been included in the productivity-linked incentive scheme to help the private sector, he said APEDA is tackling issue of market access regularly in association with the Ministry of Animal Husbandry.

Standards

“Recently, we addressed the issue of aflatoxin in milk powder with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. They have now agreed to adhere to the Codex Standards,” Angamuthu said.

India faced a major problem in the global market concerning the prevalence of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in cattle. To tackle this, the government has registered 5.6 crore farmers to develop animal husbandry.

About 15.8 crore animals have been tagged, and 1.03 crore animals have been vaccinated against FMD. In addition, the Ministry has issued “Pashu Aadhar”, a 12-digit Aadhar card like identity for cows and buffaloes, for traceability, he said.

Webinar

In addition to these, APEDA organised a Webinar on May 28 this year in collaboration with the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying on “Exports of dairy products: Issues and prospects” that included an interactive session.

Earlier on March 18, the authority joined hands with the Director-General of Foreign Trade, National Dairy Development Board and the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation and held a capacity building and sensitising programme.

It was held for farmers and farmers producer organisations to develop entrepreneurs, Angamuthu said and added that APEDA was also having virtual buyer-seller meets to allow exporters to interact with buyers abroad directly.

Later this year, APEDA will organise specific market promotion programmes in potential markets during September-November, he said.

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