An Assessment of Agricultural Export Competitiveness of Commercial Crops: Pathways to Augment Indian Agricultural Exports Reddy K. Viswanatha1,*, Reddy D. Damodar1, Sendhil R.2 1ICAR-Central Tobacco Research Institute, Rajahmundry-533 105 (Andhra Pradesh) 2Pondicherry University, Pondicherry-605014 (India) *Corresponding author's email: vishu.uas@gmail.com
Online Published on 06 February, 2023. Abstract Agricultural exports in developing countries significantly impact achieving sustainable development goals targeted at improving agricultural productivity, sustainability, poverty eradication, and employment creation. The pattern of agricultural export competitiveness of India vis-à-vis other Asian agricultural-based countries was assessed during the post-WTO period (2001 to 2019). The Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) technique was employed using time series data focusing on High-Value Commercial (HVC) crops. As is evident from the RSCA indices for India, a high degree of export competitiveness was witnessed in tobacco, cotton, and spices, whereas it declined in sugarcane, coffee, and tea over the years. The commodities that exhibited strong competitiveness reflected huge potential, whereas commodities such as sugarcane, coffee, and tea experienced erosion in their competitiveness. With the changing priorities of the nation, there is a need for India to redraw future agricultural export scenarios focusing on the production of HVC crops, processing and value chains, and diversification of export baskets while maintaining the sustainability of agro-ecological assets. Nevertheless, agricultural exports had vast potential to drive the economy in developing countries like India. The holistic conclusion advocates an important policy implication for the design of export strategy to augment the export competitiveness of HVC crops and enhance the share of agricultural exports in the context of emerging trends and change commercial facets of Indian agriculture. Top Keywords Export competitiveness, High-value crops, Strategy, Sustainable development goals. Top |