Farmers are also happy with the spectacular increase in the export of Basmati rice
24-Jul-2024 12:15 PM
New Delhi. The producers of Punjab-Haryana are especially happy with the spectacular increase in the export of Basmati rice and they can make every effort to increase the area of Basmati paddy in the current Kharif season.
Farmers are expected to get better and attractive prices for Basmati paddy during the upcoming marketing season. It is worth noting that the minimum support price is not announced for Basmati paddy and its price is decided by market forces.
The price of Basmati paddy remained high in the current CIA of 2023-24. Although the minimum export price (MAP) of $ 9.50 per tonne is applicable for Basmati rice, despite this, its exports jumped to a record level of Rs 48,389.21 crore during the financial year 2023-24 (April-March), which was about 25 percent more than the exports of the financial year 2022-23.
Export performance is improving in the current financial year as well, due to which farmers are expected to get high and profitable price of Basmati paddy.
Data from government body- APEDA shows that during the financial year 2022-23, 45.61 lakh tonnes of Basmati rice worth Rs 38524.10 crore was exported from India. In fact, within the last four years,
there has been a tremendous increase of 83 percent in the export income of Basmati rice and its amount jumped from Rs 26,415 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 48,389 crore in 2023-24. In the financial year 2022-23, Basmati rice was exported from India to 149 countries of the world, while during 2023-24, the name of one more country was added to this list.
During the first two months of the current financial year i.e. April-May 2024, the export income of Basmati rice increased to $ 1.037 billion, which was 13.11 percent more than the income of $ 917 million in the same months last year.
Saudi Arabia was its biggest buyer. Exporters have asked the government to reduce the minimum export for Basmati rice from $ 950 per tonne to $ 800-850 per tonne because importing countries have started hesitating to buy it at high prices. There is a good amount of previous stock of rice in these countries.