India to welcome the biggest ever business mission with Dutch Pm's visit

The visit of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte this month with four cabinet ministers, 15 CEOs, and about 220 participants in the business delegation is the biggest Dutch trade mission to India ever and will further strengthen the relations in agriculture, smart cities, water management, health, and R&D. 

The Netherlands and India have historical relations going back to the early 17th century and the Netherlands is the fourth largest investor of FDI in India.

India and the Netherlands have been sources of agro exports/imports for each other. India exports seven times more agro produce than Netherlands exports to India. The Netherlands exports mostly input for agriculture, like agro-tech, agro-knowledge, high yield seeds, seed potatoes, semen to India. Together India and the Netherlands are a natural fit in Agro. 

If India wants to double its food production or double its farmer's income, then the Netherlands has the technologies to make it happen. An example are apple trees. India puts a lot of effort and budget on the renewal of apple orchards. The Dutch apple trees have a yield per hectare of 5 times the yield of the traditional apple trees variety in India. And the Dutch trees have their first apple harvest after 11 months. 

The requirement of imported apple plants in Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh is in excess of 5 mln plants per year, of critical importance to farmers. However, the imported plants are required to be kept in Post Entry Quarantine (PEQ) to be created by the importer, for prescribed periods ranging from 9 months to 2 years.

It is extremely difficult - if not impossible - to keep the plants in PEQ facilities in good condition for such a long time; why, even creating the PEQ facilities is impossible. We feel that through registration and certification in the Netherlands and close cooperation with the Indian Plant Protection authorities we can avoid a PEQ. Indian apple farmers stand to gain: the productivity of the new trees will be five times that of the old ones. 

The visit of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte this month with four cabinet ministers, 15 CEOs, and about 220 participants in the business delegation is the biggest Dutch trade mission to India ever and will further strengthen the relations in agriculture, smart cities, water management, health, and R&D. 

The Netherlands and India have historical relations going back to the early 17th century and the Netherlands is the fourth largest investor of FDI in India. 

India and the Netherlands have been sources of agro exports/imports for each other. India exports seven times more agro produce than Netherlands exports to India. The Netherlands exports mostly input for agriculture, like agro-tech, agro-knowledge, high yield seeds, seed potatoes, semen to India. Together India and the Netherlands are a natural fit in Agro. 

If India wants to double its food production or double its farmer's income, then the Netherlands has the technologies to make it happen. An example are apple trees. India puts a lot of effort and budget on the renewal of apple orchards. The Dutch apple trees have a yield per hectare of 5 times the yield of the traditional apple trees variety in India. And the Dutch trees have their first apple harvest after 11 months. 

The requirement of imported apple plants in Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh is in excess of 5 mln plants per year, of critical importance to farmers. However, the imported plants are required to be kept in Post Entry Quarantine (PEQ) to be created by the importer, for prescribed periods ranging from 9 months to 2 years. 

It is extremely difficult - if not impossible - to keep the plants in PEQ facilities in good condition for such a long time; why even creating the PEQ facilities is impossible. We feel that through registration and certification in the Netherlands and close cooperation with the Indian Plant Protection authorities we can avoid a PEQ. Indian apple farmers stand to gain: the productivity of the new trees will be five times that of the old ones.