The government is drawing out plans to boost agricultural exports on the back of shipments crossing the $50-billion mark in the last fiscal, weathering high freight rates and container shortages.

Processed items at $25.6 billion made up half of the exports, M. Angamuthu, chairman of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda), said.

The government has now “created a product matrix for 50 items from Purvanchal (eastern UP), the Himalayan region, North Eastern states, J&K and Ladakh,” Angamuthu said.

The focus is to promote natural farming products by developing their standards and certification systems as there is a huge demand for foods, cosmetics and medicines that use natural ingredients, Angamuthu said.

Apeda has also set up a website — the farmer connect portal — to facilitate interactions among exporters and farmer producers organisations, co-operatives and women entrepreneurs.

The portal has registered 3,295 farmer bodies and exporters and 24 lakh organic farmers.

The major destination for exporters are Bangladesh, UAE, Vietnam, US, Nepal, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran and Egypt. Rice was the top forex earner among farm products at $9.6 billion during 2021-22, growing 9.35 per cent from the previous year when it touched $8.8 billion.

Wheat exports hit $2.1 billion in 2021-22, growing 273 per cent from $567 million in 2020-21. The item “other cereals” registered a growth of 53 per cent to $1.08 billion against $705 million a year ago.

Export of bovine meat increased to $3.3 billion in 2021-22 from $3.1 billion a year ago. Fruits and vegetables export were up 12 per cent to touch $1.7 billion against $1.4 billion, while processed fruits and vegetables exports were up 7 per cent to reach $1.2 billion against $1.1 billion.

Exports of other processed food items grew 34 per cent during 2021-22 to touch $1.1 billion against $866 million a year ago.