New Delhi, Feb. 12 -- India will leverage the three free trade agreements (FTAs) it signed with European countries to tap the over $60 billion organic food market of the region, as New Delhi is focusing on cooperative organic farming to achieve scale and become a trusted part of global organic food supply chain and help small farmers in raising their income, commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal said. Speaking at the global trade fair for organic products at Nuremberg (Germany), he said: "If we are looking at an organic ecosystem, a sustainable ecosystem, with right scale..., to serve as a global organic food basket for the world, I think India is the place to be." As per land use statistics for 2021-22, the geographical area of India is 328.7 million hectares, of which around 54.8% is agricultural land. "I'm happy to convey that that [India's] organic ecosystem is growing very fast. Today, 3% of our cultivation is organic, with 4.7 million hectares of land under organic calculation with 2.4 million farmers practising it. And it is only increasing by the day," he said at the inaugural function of the event. The ceremony was also attended by German minister of agriculture, food and regional identity Alois Rainer, and European Commission's director-general of agriculture and rural development Elisabeth Werner. Referring to the India-EU FTA, which was concluded last month, Agrawal said that the leaders have rightly called it the "mother of all deals" because "this agreement brings together two large economies, and together we are $25 trillion" economy, which is one-fourth of the world market. "And not only this, I think, we bring in scale, because we are not talking of a $25 trillion economy only, we are talking of 2 billion people, a market with 2 billion people," he said, adding that they represent more than 25% of the world. The EU is a bloc of 27 developed countries of Europe. Referring to two other FTAs already signed - one with the United Kingdom (UK) and the other with four-nation bloc of European Free Trade Association (EFTA), he said, "And if we are able to take the other contiguous geographies, where we have free trade agreements - the EU, the UK and the EFTA - we are talking of a $30 trillion free market with more than 2 billion people," he said. According to the commerce secretary, India and its FTA partners in Europe have opened up a huge opportunity, offering greater synergy. This "kind of synergy that was not there in the past," he said. Talking about the potential of the India-EU FTA, he said that the two partners can not only establish a reliable and trust-based global supply chain to serve both the Indian and the EU markets, but also serve a large part of the world. "I think this synergy is important in today's world where we are facing a lot of turmoil in global trade. We are facing challenges of different kinds, which we have not experienced in the past," he said. "I think India-EU FTA, offers a ray of hope" that there is a segment of global trade, which "still believes in a rule-based trading model" and "which is ready to work together to build a reliable supply chain for the world"....