An Analysis of Growth, Performance and Instability of India’s Exports of Food Crops and Food Items during Pre –reform and Reform Periods

India has completed two and half decades of economic reforms. There are studies related to impact of reforms on India's foreign trade. Most of the studies have analyzed India's foreign trade as a whole and in terms of value in specific. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the impact of reforms on India’s export of food crops and food items in terms of quantity and also value. The impact has measured through decadal value, Compound Growth Rate (CGR), Instability Index (II) and semi-log regression estimation. It has been
observed that reforms accelerated exports of all sectors in terms of values. There has been an increasing movement in the export of rice, beverages, sugar, sugar refined, sugar raw and centrifugal, pastry, coffee extracts, sugar confectionary, chocolate products, flour maize, macaroni and malt. There has been ups and down movements in the export of wheat, flour wheat and bran wheat. There are one food crops and nine food items have fallen under low II during overall study period. This number decreased to five food items during period Pre-reform period and again increased to one food crops and eight food items during reform period. It is inferred that the performance of export of food crops and food items in terms of instability index has increased. The estimation of semi-log regression model confirmed that there has been a positive significant change in the export of food crops and food items during reform period.