An insight into the trend and instability of processed fruits export from India

Abstract: India is one of the world’s leading fruit and vegetable producers after China owing to its diverse agro-climatic conditions. However, the 20-30 percent of the produce is wasted because of its perishability. The processed form of fruits is the most convenient for storage and export owing to its demand in foreign countries. Hence, this study analyzed the growth and instability of different processed fruit exports in India from 2001-02 to 2022-23. The Compound Annual Growth rates showed that exports increased overall growth rate, with a higher growth rate for jam, jelly and marmalades at 12 percent, followed by dried fruits (9 percent) and mango pulp (0.08 percent) in quantity exported. The instability was calculated using the Cuddy-Della Index for processed fruits’ export values (MT). It was realized from the result that the mango pulp category showed high instability in the overall export with Cuddy-Della Index value of 26.16 percent. In contrast, jam, jelly, marmalades, and dried fruits showed instability of 23.86 percent and 24.8 percent, respectively. This study concluded that proper infrastructure, cold chain, and supply chain for horticultural commodities should be developed for destination-specific production of processed fruits, as this could lead India to compete with global exporters and explore new alternate markets for the produce.