Trends of India’s Agricultural Import During the Pre-reform and Post-reform Periods

Abstract

Agriculture has been the largest sector of the Indian economy. It plays a vital role in providing food for the nation, raw materials to the industry providing employment. Past two and a half decades, India has implemented comprehensive trade policy reforms in the agriculture sector due to internal and external factors. This study has investigated patterns of India’s foreign trade in agriculture during pre-reform and reform periods. The effect of liberalization of India’s foreign trade has greatly influenced the structure of trade in goods and services. For this study, the agriculture communities have been classified into Food Crops and food items, Pulses, Oil and oilseeds, Commercial crops, Plantation crops, Animal products, and Oilseed cake meals. Data for this study have been collected from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official website (www.faostat.fao.org), from 1970 to 2013. In 1970, the highest value of percentage share is observed for the food and food crops import at 55.56 per cent followed by commercial crops at 29.15 per cent, animal products at 6.83 per cent, pulses at 5.73 per cent, and oilseeds and oil at 1.29 per cent. In 2017, the highest value of percentage share is observed for oilseeds and oil import at 40.45 per cent followed by commercial crops at 27.87 per cent, pulses at 14.03 and food crops and food items at 10.59 per cent. Overall, there is a significant increase is noted for the percentage share of oilseeds and oil in total agricultural imports in the study period. In the case of pulses, the percentage share of imports in total agricultural export has been increasing during the study period among the other major group of products. There is downward movement is observed for the import of food crops and food items during the study period.