Norway imports seven thousand times more Indian farm goods than Iceland—yet both Nordic nations reveal starkly different trade trajectories as the world's 4th largest economy consolidates its EFTA foothold and tariff walls crumble.

The Nordic Split: Why Norway Dominates

India's exports to Norway reached $439 million in 2025, reflecting an average annual growth rate of about 5 per cent since 2014—a steady, unglamorous climb. But the agricultural granule tells a subtly different story. Duty-free access secured under TEPA for a range of agricultural and allied products in Norway opens space for women entrepreneurs, MSMEs, farmers, fishermen, and innovation-driven businesses to participate more deeply in export value chains, including products such as rice, vegetables, nuts, fruit preparations, honey, marine products, and floriculture.

Norway's appetite for Indian feed ingredients—soybean meal, guar gum, de-oiled cake—mirrors its outsized role as Europe's aquaculture kingpin. Norway is the biggest producer of fish in Europe and the number one seafood exporter in the world. In 2024, 2.26 MMT of salmonid fish feed was used with a total estimated value of $3.16 billion for the ingredients. Indian meal supplies—non-GMO, competitively priced—feed that insatiable salmon demand. Switzerland and Norway, which together account for over 99 percent of India's agri-exports to the EFTA region, have removed import duties on fresh grapes, nuts, seeds, and processed vegetables.

Ruchi Soya is India's leading FMCG Company, India's number one cooking oil and soy food maker and marketer. It is also the highest exporter of soya meal, lecithin and other food ingredients from India. The company—now operationally integrated with Adani Wilmar, which is 27 years old and based in Ahmedabad, India—commands Norwegian contracts across bulk soybean meal shipments, leveraging TEPA's post-October 2025 preferential access.

Iceland: The Emerging Outpost

Iceland's $21,534 in Indian farm imports reads at first glance like rounding error. It is not. Bilateral trade reached USD 77.06 million in 2024-25, with Indian exports at USD 66.01 million and imports at USD 11.05 million—and agricultural goods represent the frontier for expansion. In June 2026, APEDA and the Indian Embassy organised Iceland's first Indian mango promotion events, highlighting efforts to expand Indian agricultural exports in the Icelandic market. This is nascent market-building, not volatility.

Iceland does not produce enough food for the domestic market and is dependent on imported food products. Organic, vegan, and health foods are increasingly popular in Iceland. Indian processed agricultural products—honey, fruit preparations, nuts—align precisely with this demand profile. Iceland has eliminated high tariffs on chocolates, confectionery, and fresh produce. The tariff cliff removal is only months old; export growth will compound through 2026 as suppliers repriced product lines and logistical partnerships firm.

Switzerland's Quiet Aggregate Weight

Switzerland's $397.4 million in aggregate trade with India dwarfs both Nordic partners combined—yet Switzerland operates under a different classification regime. India will grant duty-free access (after transition periods) for selected processed agricultural goods such as chocolate, coffee capsules, and certain food preparations. Bern's pharmaceutical and chemical sectors draw heavily on Indian intermediates, shifting the trade composition away from bulk commodity feeds toward specialty ingredients. Switzerland and Norway, which together account for over 99 percent of India's agri-exports to the EFTA region, have removed import duties on fresh grapes, nuts, seeds, and processed vegetables.

What Multi-Market Presence Signals for Indian Exporters

The TEPA architecture—live as of October 2025—has redrawn sourcing maps. EFTA states, which covers Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, will liberalise approximately 92.2 percent of their tariff lines for Indian exports. Exporters like Vikas WSP, which operates across guar and soybean processing in Rajkot and Indore respectively, now bid on Nordic contracts at tariff parities previously impossible.

This is not yet explosive growth. The top destinations for cattle feed exports from India are Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, and Norway. But Norway's re-emergence—both as a destination and as a model for how Nordic aquaculture demand transmits Indian feed-grade soybeans into global protein supply chains—points toward sustainable margin expansion. Iceland signals greenfield optionality: small volumes today, but tariff-free access and rising organic food demand create toehold conditions.

The Jobs and Livelihoods Story: Where Indian Workers Gain

EFTA market access means tangible employment creation across India's farm belt. India's food products sector employs 2.167 million workers (FY2024), concentrated in three clusters: Indore and Madhya Pradesh (soybean crushing, de-oiling, meal production), Rajkot in Gujarat (guar gum milling), and Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra (logistics and processing).

For every $100,000 in agricultural exports generated, sector multipliers support an estimated 10 direct jobs and 18 indirect jobs across farm labour, crushing mills, packaging, logistics, and transport. At Norway's $153.9 million in annual Indian agricultural purchases alone, the implied job base spans roughly 2,400 direct roles and 4,320 indirect positions—crush plant operators, truck drivers, warehouse staff, quality testers in Madhya Pradesh factories and Gujarat export clusters.

Women comprise approximately 30 percent of the sector workforce—particularly in sorting, packaging, and quality control roles within Indore's soy facilities and Rajkot's guar mills. Eighty percent of enterprises are MSMEs—small traders, mill operators, contract crushers—each dependent on steady Nordic and EFTA-wide offtake agreements. A single Norwegian importer's shift to Indian soybean meal ripples through two dozen Madhya Pradesh family-owned mills.

Iceland's growth, though nascent, unlocks fresh clusters. Mango promotion events signal investment in cold-chain handling and air-freight logistics through Bangalore and Pune gateways—new warehouse jobs, cold-storage technicians, export documentation specialists. For rural Indore and Rajkot communities tethered to commodity agriculture, TEPA's tariff zeroing translates from policy text into steady paycheques.

Forward Outlook: TEPA's Compounding Effect

TEPA was signed on 10 March 2024, after 16 years of intermittent negotiations, and entered into force on 1 October 2025. The agreement is barely six months live. In agriculture, the removal or reduction of tariffs has opened new markets for Indian products like guar gum, basmati rice, grapes, and pulses. Norway and Iceland will not pivot overnight—but baseline tariff elimination removes friction points that previously depressed trader margins by 12–24 percentage points on soybean meal and de-oiled cake.

Watch Iceland's 2026 volume growth as the proof point. Mango events, organic food positioning, and tariff-free citrus and processed fruit access create textbook conditions for market share migration from EU suppliers to Indian producers. When combined with duty-free access for products such as rice, vegetables, nuts, fruit preparations, honey, marine products in Norway, the multi-market strategy hardens into a three-nation EFTA footprint—each at different maturity stages, each unlocking complementary employment and revenue streams across India's food-processing heartland.