Vegetables to become expensive

After the ban on export of non-basmati rice from India, crisis is cooking in the Indian vegetable export consignments to the Kingdom. The daily supply of vegetables to the Kingdom and the rest of the Gulf region from South India was likely to be hit following the decision of agricultural food exporters there to stop export of vegetables to the Gulf in the face of mounting losses. The ban came into effect yesterday.
The Agricultural Process Food Exporters Association (APFEA) took the decision following the huge losses exporters have been suffering on account of the rising rupee.
APFEA officials said vegetable exporters were suffering heavily on account of the strengthening of the Indian rupee.
With an annual output of about 127 million tons of fruit and vegetables, India is the world’s second largest exporter of vegetables and fruit and the South Indian States of Kerala and Tamil Nadu account for a sizeable volume of the export outflow. Currently, around 85 tons of fresh vegetables are exported every day from three Kerala airports and the last consignment left on Thursday. “Forty per cent of the export volume goes to Dubai and the rest to other Gulf countries, “ informed Mathew.
“Since no vegetable exports take place from other South Indian airports in the scale that happens in Kerala, expatriates in the Gulf will not get their daily supply of Indian vegetables. Around 50 per cent of the vegetables we export come from the neighbouring State of Tamil Nadu,” APFEA official Suresh Mathew said.
India was the third largest supplier in Bahrain’s non-oil exports list after Saudi Arabia and USA.