RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The president of the OCB System (Brazilian Cooperatives Organization), Márcio Lopes de Freitas, said on Monday, February 1st, that the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative (IFFCO) – India’s largest in the segment, with a turnover of US$32 billion in 2020 – has shown interest in strengthening relations with Brazil. Lopes met with IFFCO’s CEO, US Awasthi, last Friday.
At the meeting, Awasthi said he would like to bring IFFCO closer to the Brazilian cooperative movement, as it has already done with agricultural cooperatives in Canada, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Jordan. The Indian cooperative’s interest is to exchange agricultural technology and supply distribution.
Comprising 36,000 member cooperatives, IFFCO is a hub that operates in the manufacturing and marketing sector. The total number of associated rural producers exceeds 50 million.
According to Lopes, OCB and IFFCO have decided to establish a working group to explore potential cooperation areas between the parties. The group’s goal is to attract Brazilian cooperatives that want to export to India or also import Indian products.
Bilateral trade between Brazil and India reached US$6.7 billion in 2020. A total of US$2.8 billion was exported by Brazil and US$3.9 billion imported from India over the period. On India’s agricultural purchasing list are pulses, such as beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas. In 2020, India imported US$57 million in pulses from Brazil.