Grape exports to EU may turn sour this year

The Europeans want Indian grape farmers to tinker with their farm practices – no pesticides, henceforth. The Indians want Europeans to stop setting unrealistic targets of chemical residue levels.

With the grape issue becoming an emotive one, India's exports to EU are likely to take a hit this year, feel exporters. Seventy per cent of India's grape exports, which touched Rs 545.34 crore last year, are to the EU.

At the ‘Fresh Produce India' summit that kicked off in the Capital on Thursday, a whole session was devoted to Indian grapes, signalling how sour the issue has become. March to May are the peak months for export of Indian grapes to the EU. And, India is the only country capable of feeding the EU market in those months. Hence, both parties want to avoid a repeat of last year.

New regulation

In 2010, Indian grape exports faced a setback, with EU reluctant to accept Indian table grape consignments as chlormequat chloride — a plant growth regulator — was detected in excess of the prescribed maximum residue level (MRL). In 2009, EU had come up with new regulations on pesticides, raising the chemicals to be monitored from 98 to 167. Unaware of the changed rules, Indian exporters who did not meet the new standards, faced rejection.

Although only less than 10 per cent of the total export volumes were rejected, the issue has escalated into a big one, going by the worry writ large on the face of both European delegates and Indian grape exporters.

Mr Henk Van Dujin, Agriculture counsellor at the Dutch Embassy in New Delhi, described how Indian grapes were crucial for the Netherlands — the Dutch import 50 per cent of all table grapes exported to the EU from India.

Mr Dujin described how after the imbroglio the Dutch and Indians have been running Government to Government projects, creating awareness among grape, pomegranate and banana growers and exporters about safe trade. He is hopeful that APEDA's new residue monitoring project and web-based GrapeNet software system, which provides traceability for all grape exported to the European Union (EU), will improve issues.

Exporters pessimistic

But exporters remained pessimistic. The new standards mean more tests — from Rs 3,000 shelled out earlier for residue tests, today growers and exporters have to pay Rs 15,000. At the other end of the chain, importers too shell out more for testing.

Mr Mayank Tandon, Sr Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, Freshtrop Fruits Ltd , which exports an average of 250 to 300 containers of grapes annually to Europe, foresees a drop this year. “The process of exports to EU has become very expensive and unviable. Also domestic prices are very high this year,” he says.

A representative from Mahindra Agribusiness, India's largest grape exporter, too, was very vocal about why Indian farmers should change farm practices to kowtow to EU's new standards. “At your end what is being done to lower standards to food safety levels rather than regulatory ones,” he demanded of them.

But, with EU likely to remain firm on setting stringent pesticide regulations, if India wants to keep exporting to the region, the change has to come at the field level. Farmers have to learn to use chemicals judiciously, says Mr Johnathon Sutton, TESCO's Group Sourcing manager — Asia and Ocenia, pointing out how spraying at an early stage, rather than waiting till harvest stage could cut residue levels.

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