FTA with New Zealand: Will it Afflict the Interests of Indian Apple Growers?
Report by Jag Mohan Thaken
24 December 2025, New Delhi: Amid a stalled period for Indo-American trade finalisation, India and New Zealand announced a bilateral agreement on December 22, 2025, stating a win-win situation for both. However, the implementation may take a period of six months or so.
A Government of India press release through PIB on December 22, terming the FTA as gains for agriculture, technology cooperation, and farmer income growth, states that New Zealand has agreed on focused action plans for kiwifruit, apples, and honey to improve productivity, quality, and sectoral capabilities of these fruits’ growers in India. The cooperation includes the establishment of centres of excellence, improved planting material, capacity building for growers, technical support for orchard management, post-harvest practices, supply chains, and food safety. Projects for premium apple cultivators and sustainable beekeeping practices will enhance production and quality standards.
This is paired with market access for selected agricultural products (apples, kiwifruit, Manuka honey) from New Zealand in India.
The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on December 22, 2025, tweeted on his X account (@narendramodi): “An important moment for India-New Zealand relations, with a strong push to bilateral trade and investment! My friend PM Christopher Luxon and I had a very good conversation a short while ago following the conclusion of the landmark India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. Concluded in just nine months, this historic milestone reflects a strong political will and shared ambition to deepen economic ties between our two countries.
This FTA ensures enhanced market access, deeper investment flows, numerous opportunities for innovators, entrepreneurs, farmers, MSMEs, students and youth.”
In another tweet on the same day, PM Modi wrote: “The India–NZ partnership is going to scale newer heights. The FTA sets the stage for doubling bilateral trade in the coming five years. India welcomes investment worth over USD 20 billion from New Zealand across diverse sectors. Our talented youth, vibrant startup ecosystem and reform-driven economy offer a strong foundation for innovation, growth and long-term partnership. At the same time, we continue to strengthen cooperation in other areas like sports, education and cultural linkages.”
New Zealand also seems cheered by this FTA. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), New Zealand, on its website states: “The New Zealand–India FTA will deliver preferential access for New Zealand exporters to the large and fast-growing Indian market for 95% of our current exports over time—with more than 50% benefiting from full tariff elimination immediately on day one, and rising to more than 80% over time.”
Divulging the key goods benefits, MFAT adds: “Forestry—a major export to India—over 95% of exports will be able to enter tariff-free immediately from entry into force, with tariffs on almost all our existing trade phased out over seven years. Tariffs removed immediately on sheep meat, wool, coal and many other products; tariffs on New Zealand’s key fish and seafood exports phased out over seven years; valuable new quota access for kiwifruit and apples, with volumes starting well above average recent trade and growing beyond that.”
MFAT claims that New Zealand is the first country to secure preferential access for apples in any Indian FTA, and the first kiwifruit exporter to secure tariff-free access for kiwifruit plus a 50% tariff reduction outside quota; phased tariff elimination on other horticultural products including cherries, avocados, blueberries and persimmons; tariffs on Manuka honey cut by 75% over five years, making New Zealand the first country to secure preferential access for honey in any Indian FTA; tariffs on bulk infant formula and other dairy-based preparations, and peptones (a dairy-based product) phased out over seven years; and tariffs for albumins (a milk protein product) halved within a quota covering average recent trade.
This new preferential access will provide valuable new opportunities to grow exports to India and a more level playing field with competitors from India’s FTA partners who already enjoy low or no tariffs on many of their exports.
New Zealand hopes that the benefits of the FTA are expected to grow over time as India’s economy continues to grow—projected to become the world’s third-largest economy over the coming years—and its middle class continues to expand.
New Zealand’s version reveals that most of these FTA parts are circling around farmers’ issues, whether it is forestry, sheep meat, wool, tariffs on bulk infant formula and other dairy-based preparations and peptones (a dairy-based product), tariffs for albumins (a milk protein product), key fish and seafood, preferential access for apples in any Indian FTA, the first kiwifruit exporter to secure tariff-free access for kiwifruit plus a 50% tariff reduction, preferential access for honey, or phased tariff elimination on other horticultural products including cherries, avocados, blueberries and persimmons, with tariffs on Manuka honey cut by 75% over five years.
Enticed by the inclusion of horticulture, animal meat and sea products in the FTA, the Apple Farmers’ Federation of India (AFFI) has condemned the lowering of import tariffs on New Zealand apples and doubts that dumping of foreign apples will worsen the crisis in the apple economy.
In a reactionary press statement, the Apple Farmers’ Federation of India (AFFI) unequivocally condemned the ending of the 50 per cent basic customs duty, as per the India–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA), on the import of apples. AFFI pleads that, as per this FTA, a fixed quantity of apple imports at zero or highly concessional tariff rates will be allowed. New Zealand’s trade ministry on Monday said it has become the “first” country to get duty concessions for its apples under any free trade agreement signed by India. A similar tariff rate quota (TRQ) system has also been agreed upon for honey, kiwi and albumins.
AFFI fears that the present FTA with New Zealand rings alarm bells, as the country has been the fourth-largest exporter of apples to India. In the agreement, import duty concessions will be given to New Zealand on 32,500 metric tonnes (MT) in the first year of the pact. The quota will be increased to 45,000 MT in the sixth year at 25 per cent duty.
Apple growers underline that this bilateral FTA, which India is boasting as a major win, has come at a significant cost to its horticultural sector, a sector that contributes 30 per cent of agricultural GDP. Apples are considered a high-value crop in this subsector and bring remunerative incomes to farmers in the Himalayan states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, as well as the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Meghalaya.
AFFI adds that, over the past two decades, imports of apples from the US, Turkey, Iran, New Zealand, Afghanistan, etc. have been steadily rising, while the export of domestically produced fruit has remained nearly stagnant. In the last 25 years, imports have climbed from 0.2 lakh MT to 6 lakh MT, from 1.7 per cent of domestic production to 22.5 per cent. At the same time, exports—at just 21,700 MT—are behind even the 2004–05 figures, when India exported 23,100 MT of apples.
The federation further states that in recent years, the Modi government reduced the basic customs duty on apples from around 75 per cent to 50 per cent. In 2023, as part of broader trade negotiations, India removed a 20 per cent retaliatory additional duty on US apple imports that had existed on top of the basic duty. Iranian apples are being imported into India under the guise of Afghanistan origin to exploit the Afghanistan–India FTA and avoid import duties. AFFI has repeatedly urged the Indian government in the past to ban Iranian apples arriving under this relabelling practice. These reductions and illegal rerouting of apples have propelled the increase in imports.
Considering that the two states, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, producing almost 90 per cent of India’s annual apple production of 2.6 million MT, have been facing natural disasters and weather disturbances year after year, the Indian government should have increased the basic import duty to 100 per cent, as has been the consistent demand of apple farmers. Instead, in an anti-farmer move, the security of India’s apple growers has been compromised to favour the interests of New Zealand.
Therefore, AFFI demands that the Indian government protect the interests of apple farmers and immediately rescind the ending of the 50 per cent import tariff on New Zealand apples. It calls upon farmers in apple-growing villages across the country to protest this blatant attack on their livelihoods.
Showing its concerns, in its two-day National Coordination Committee meeting on July 22, 2024, the Apple Farmers’ Federation of India (AFFI) had raised the issues of the three apple-growing states—Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It demanded that the government stop the corporatisation of the apple industry and protect farmers by reducing the cost of production. The demands included a 100 per cent import duty on apples; implementation of a price policy to ensure 50 per cent of the retail price as the procurement price; banning of spurious pesticides and fertilisers; insurance coverage in the public sector; and subsidies for inputs, storage and transport. But contrary to AFFI’s expectations, the Government of India has signed an FTA with New Zealand, which may hamper the interests of apple growers. How the government will safeguard their interests is the question to be answered.
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