Bharat Shining: India’s farms are its biggest trade weapon

Despite low yields, debt, and climate change, India should be an agricultural powerhouse.In some ways, the country is on its way to attain that status.One figure tells this story: in the five years leading up to 2022, the number of Indians who couldn’t afford a healthy diet—that’s an intake of 2,330 kilocalories from six different food groups a day—went down by 16%, outpacing the global decline.India’s increasingly abundant food production doesn’t just address needs at home. It also gives the country an edge in global trade.Even though India’s share of global farm exports is just 2.2%, there are signs that this will grow. In the decade leading up to FY24, for instance, India’s farm exports more than doubled to over $48 billion.There’s incredible untapped potential. See how Brazil exported $54 billion worth of farm goods to China in 2023. India’s outbound shipments to the US, its largest trading partner, amounted to just one-tenth of that amount. The fact that India isn’t subjected to high tariffs from the US puts it in a position to develop a more favourable trade relationship in the future.So, where does India’s agriculture sector go from there?Seetharaman G explains in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again.Read this edition: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/bharat-shining-indias-farms-are-its-biggest-trade-weapon/Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/Check out The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/the-ken-premium/id6744577070To listen and read the complete edition, subscribe to The Ken