AP exports 42,935 tonne bananas despite pandemic

New Delhi : Andhra Pradesh has exported 42,935 metric tonne (MT) bananas in 2020-21 and its Grand-9 variety of bananas has a huge market demand worldwide.

This was spelt out by the Union minister for commerce and industry, Anupriya Patel, in reply to a question raised by Rajya Sabha Member, V Vijayasai Reddy here on Friday.

AP had exported 38,500 MT the last year too. Referring to the incentives and efforts, the minister said the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), an autonomous organisation under the administrative control of the department of commerce, had the mandate to promote exports of bananas.

Anantapur and Kadapa districts had been identified as a cluster for banana exports under the Agriculture Export Policy.

APEDA, in collaboration with the state government, had been taking several steps to promote exports of banana from the state, such as organising capacity building programmes in collaboration with national research institutions and horticulture universities; mobilising potential exporters; encouraging formation of new processing zones, implementing Global GAP (Good Agriculture Practices) certification; organising buyers-seller meets, providing training on fertigation, promoting 100 per cent tissue culture plantations in the cluster.

In addition, the Indian Railways had introduced an exclusive train with reefer containers to transport bananas from Anantapur to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Navi Mumbai. APEDA was also providing assistance to the exporters of bananas under various components of its scheme "Agriculture and Processed Food Export Promotion Scheme of APEDA" and other programmes, she added.