The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), Ministry of Commerce and Industry has commenced Basmati crop survey to estimate acreage, assess crop health and expected yield of aromatic and long grain rice during 2022-2023 kharif crop season using climate-based yield modelling.

The Basmati crop survey is being conducted after a gap of two years as it could not be held during 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 restrictions. Basmati rice is a registered Geographical Indication (GI) tagged agricultural product and command premium in the global market.

The survey is being executed under the Basmati Export Development Foundation (BEDF), which is an arm of APEDA. The final survey report is to be finalized by December this year.

As per the survey model, field-based as well as satellite imageries survey is being carried out on the basis of sample group of farmers selected at district level in seven Basmati producing states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh (30 districts) and three districts in Jammu & Kashmir.

To ascertain accuracy levels, GPS points are to be recorded and each farmer is getting photographed at the time they participate in the survey.

The exports of Basmati rice has increased by 25.54 per cent in April-June 2022-23 to USD 1.15 billion in comparison to USD 922 million in the corresponding months of the last fiscal.

APEDA through BEDF is assisting state governments in the promotion of Basmati rice cultivation. Through different awareness programmes being organized by APEDA and BEDF, farmers are informed about the usage of certified seeds, good agriculture practices and judicious use of pesticides to meet the international standards.

Cultivation of Basmati rice is an Indian tradition and it is a collective responsibility to maintain this tradition as there is huge demand for Basmati rice in the global market.

The farmers have also been encouraged to get themselves registered on basmati.net through the State Agriculture Department.

As part of the initiatives, BEDF in collaboration with the rice exporters associations of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh along with concerned state agriculture universities and state agriculture departments, has organised 75 awareness and training programmes to encourage farmers for growing high-quality Basmati rice in the seven states. BEDF is also involved as technical partner for different FPOs, exporter associations, etc in the key growing states.

India has exported Basmati to the tune of close to USD 12 billion in the last three years. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Kuwait, United Kingdom, Qatar and Oman have a share of close to 80 per cent in total shipments of aromatic long grained rice from India in 2021-22.

Basmati rice is one of the largest agro product for export from India. During 2020-21 India exported 4.63 million MT of Basmati rice with a value of USD 4.02 billion. Over the last 10 years, Basmati rice exports have more than doubled as during 2009-10, the export of Basmati rice was registered at 2.17 million MT.

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