The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) inked a pact with the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) to promote exports.

Highlights of the MoU:

• According to the memorandum of understanding (MoU), the key areas of cooperation include facilitating APEDA-registered exporters to get assistance under all government schemes implemented through NAFED.

• APEDA would facilitate exports by cooperatives, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), partners and associates identified and promoted by NAFED.

• The MoU also envisages ensuring sustainability and growth of exports by cooperatives by addressing issues such as technology, skill, quality products and market access.

• It entails providing assistance towards capacity building of cooperative societies, self-help groups for their social and environmental compliance and skilling as per international standards.

• The collaboration between APEDA and NAFED supports engaging cooperatives involved in agricultural production for improving the quality of agri-produce and its consolidation for better price realisation to the farmers.

• APEDA and NAFED have also agreed to work in close coordination towards sustainable cluster development in various states notified under Agri Export Policy.

What is NAFED?

• National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) is an apex organisation of marketing cooperatives for agricultural produce in India. 

• It was established in 1958 under the Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act. 

• NAFED was founded with the objective to promote the trade of agricultural produce and forest resources across the nation.

• Agricultural farmers are the main members of NAFED.

• The activities of NAFED add to the betterment of agriculture and post harvest of the produce. NAFED procures stocks directly from the farmers in regulated mandis in open auction through the cooperative infrastructure thereby providing them a ready market, fair price and preventing their exploitation at the hands of private traders.

• Also, whenever there is a glut in market due to bumper production when prices tend to crash, NAFED undertakes procurement at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) under the Price Support Scheme in case of 16 notified commodities (pulses, oilseeds, copra, dehusked coconut, cotton) thereby providing remunerative prices to farmers for their produce.

• There are over 900 members in NAFED, represented by chief executives of apex level marketing/consumer cooperative/other national level federations, state level marketing/ tribal/commodity federations and primary cooperative marketing/processing societies.

• NAFED is creating a network of honey FPOs across Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Around 65 FPOs will be part of the honey corridor linking north-west to north-eastern regions. NAFED is aiming at bringing all the FPOs associated with honey production for creating requisite infrastructure under the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission.

What is APEDA?

• The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) was established by the government under the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority Act passed by Parliament in December 1985.

• APEDA, which replaced the Processed Food Export Promotion Council (PFEPC), has its headquarters in New Delhi.

• In order to reach out to exporters in different parts of the country, APEDA has set up five regional offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Guwahati and 13 virtual offices in Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneshwar, Srinagar, Chandigarh, Imphal, Agartala, Kohima, Chennai, Raipur,  Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Lucknow and Panaji.

• APEDA has been entrusted with the responsibility of export promotion and development of 14 agricultural and processed food product groups listed in the Schedule to the APEDA Act. In addition to this, APEDA has been entrusted with the responsibility to monitor the import of sugar as well.

• APEDA has been actively engaged in the development of markets besides upgradation of infrastructure and quality to promote the export of agro products.

• In its endeavour to promote agro exports, APEDA, under its Plan Scheme titled ‘Agriculture Export Promotion Scheme of APEDA’ provides financial assistance to the registered exporters under sub-components of the scheme — market development, infrastructure development, quality development and transport assistance.

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