Centre chants brand mantra to push farm products overseas

Taking a leaf out of the FMCG books, the government is now chanting the brand mantra to push agricultural products in the international markets.

The plan is to brand a product linking it to its place of origin on the lines of Kiwi fruit, Macintosh apples and Californian oranges.

Ratnagiri (Alphonso) mangoes, Nagpur oranges, Nasik onions, Maharashtra chikoos and Himachal Pradesh apples will now be repositioned in the international market.

Rajana Kumar, chairperson of Nabard said, "Though there is a huge potential for Indian agri products in the overseas markets, our marketing have been poor. The government will have to rope in embassies and consulates to push our products there."

Yes Bank is working with Union ministry of agriculture and ministry of commerce in providing advisory services for agri-branding. Rana Kapoor, managing director of Yes Bank, said "India is an agrarian economy and we need to convert it into an agri-business economy.

Every state has its own speciality "" be it fruits, vegetables, handicrafts - and this has to be highlighted. Branding of state speciality products will help access the top-end stores and will realise better pricing."

Internationally, governments or co-operatives have defined product specifications, supported with enhanced production systems and established these products through strong global brand management support in selected countries.

A classic example is the success story of the Golden Kiwi Fruit. The Zespri group is a farmer co-operative (owned by 2,500 owner producers) and is the exclusive marketer of Zespritm green, gold, and Organic Kiwifruit.

Headquartered in New Zealand, Zespri has regional offices in Europe, the UK, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and North America and has presence in more than 55 countries.

Zespri's sales revenue for 2003-2004 stood at $ 911 million (around 6 per cent increase over 2002-2003) and the groups profitability in the same period was $ 22.9 million (around 59 per cent increase over 2002-2003).

The government's move is to promote the 'India Inc brand' through strong research-based identification of export opportunities in other markets.

Registration of collective marks is provided under the Trademarks Act 1999 that came into force last year.