India-EU free trade agreement: Does it brighten prospects for India’s agricultural exports?

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The conclusion of negotiations over the India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) shows that agriculture is no longer a deal-breaker. Both sides carefully manoeuvred around each other’s domestic sensitivities while offering tariff reductions to enhance market access.

The agri-food negotiation was complex, covering multiple chapters—including tariffs and non-tariff measures like sanitary, phytosanitary and technical barriers to trade, apart from labour and environmental standards. Given its Green Deal objectives, the EU added a chapter on ‘Sustainable Food Systems,’ which was missing in its earlier trade agreements with countries like Vietnam. It would have been a big miss had agri-food trade been left out of the FTA.

The EU is India’s second-largest market (after the US), accounting for over 10% of our agri-exports. In 2024–25, India exported $5.25 billion of agri-products to the EU, accounting for around 7% of our total exports to the bloc. The top 10 commodities accounting for over 80% of exports to the EU include marine products, coffee, spices and rice.

We have a positive agri-trade balance with the EU, but there is scope to raise our exports as India ranks 11th among its import destinations, making up only 2.3% of its agri-imports. Some of our exports face high tariffs in the EU. If its duties on marine exports, ranging between 4% and 26%, are eliminated, Indian exporters of items like shrimp would be at par with those from Vietnam and Ecuador, which face zero duty.