Dr. Parveen Kumar
Horticulture plays a unique role in the Indian economy by providing income and food security to the masses. The country with diverse agro-climatic zones provides ample ideal conditions for growth of different horticultural crops. The horticultural crops comprise of fruit vegetables, root and tuber crops, flowers, medicinal plants, spices condiments plantation crops and many more. Horticultural produce constitute an important exportable commodities in many countries. India exports flowers to America, Netherlands, Germany, Japan and United Kingdom. Onions are exported to Malaysia, UAE, Singapore, Srilanka and Bangladesh; Vegetables to Srilanka, America, UAE, Spain, Saudi Arabia, UK and Srilanka. Similarly processed vegetables are exported to Egypt, Srilanka, UAE, Spain and Saudi Arabia; Fresh grapes to Netherlands, UAE and many other countries. Besides this, this sector is mother for many ancillary industries like canning and processing industries. Horticultural crops provide gainful employment for small farmers and agricultural labour throughout the year. Their potential for providing gainful employment can be gauged from the fact that one hectare of fruit production generates 860 man days per annum as against 143 man days for cereals. Some industrial attribute crops and cultural intensive crops like grapes, banana and pineapple generate much more employment ranging from 1,000 to 2,500 men days per year.
In the country the sector is being silently headed for a revolution. Recently, it has achieved a milestone. It may surprise all of us that the production of horticulture including fruits and vegetables has exceeded the food grains production in the country. If we talk of the last decade alone, the horticultural output has surged by nearly 70 per cent from around 167 million tonnes in 2004-05 to over 283 million tonnes in 2014-15. This was higher than the food grains production in that year. The year 2016-17 is the fifth straight year when horticulture production has outstripped that of food grains. Among the states, Uttar Pradesh tops the list with an estimated horticulture produce of 37 million tonnes followed by West Bengal 27.5 million tonnes, Gujarat 23.4 million tonnes and Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra (20.7 million tonnes each). The country is infact the leader in several horticultural crops including mango banana, papaya, cashew nut, areca nut etc. According to Agricultural Census 2010-11, over 87 per cent of the total vegetables and 90 per cent of fruits are grown by small holders. This is much more than cereal crops where irrigation access varies from 16 per cent for pulses to 59 per cent for rice. The acreage under horticulture has also grown by around two per cent a year. Significantly horticulture production has either continued to grow or dip only marginally even during bad monsoon years including the drought years of 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2015. Moreover it has also demonstrated its resilience to drought by producing more
The Government of India has also started various programmes for holistic development of horticulture. A new programme entitled ‘Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH)’ has been started from the year 2014-15. MIDH integrates the ongoing schemes of National Horticulture Mission, Horticulture Mission for North East and Himalayan States, National Bamboo Mission and many others. Despite a spectacular performance in the last few years in terms of production, productivity and climatic resilience, the horticulture sector in the country faces several constraints. These constraints mainly relate to the absence of storage for post harvest produce. The value addition in the country is also dismal as compared to the developed countries. Lack of value addition when most of the horticulture produce is perishable further adds to the woes of the farmers who are engaged in this sector. The lack of good quality planting material at the appropriate time results in lesser yield and this result in less productivity per unit area. In the absence of a formal marketing structure in the country the farmers are also forced to sell their produce through the middlemen or various intermediaries. These charge huge commissions from them and earn more than what the producers get from their produce. Sometimes when there is glut in the market and that too without any marketing support the farmers have to go for distress selling or sometimes destruction of the produce as the farmer does not have adequate space for storage of the produce. Even cases have been reported where the producers do not turn up to reclaim their stocks kept in cold stores.
As the sector is very vital for the economy of the country therefore serious efforts are needed to do away with the various constraints and revamp the sector to further enhance the productivity and production. The Government of India has also started various programmes to revive the sector. This can be possible by provision quality planting material to the growers well in advance. The fruit growers also need to be provided with linkages by connecting them with the nearest market so that they get remunerative prices of their produce and not have to go for mass destruction or distress selling in case there is a glut in the market. The e-NAM is also a very noble initiative of the government to address the marketing constraints of the farming community. It enables the farmers to have country wide access to markets without being physically present there and a choice to sell their produce in the market which gives them the highest returns. As most of the horticultural produce comes from the rainfed regions, it is also imperative that Drought prone and climate resilient plant varieties that should withstand the climatic shocks be developed and provided to the farmers. Insurance and price support are also vital factors. Insurance against weather risks like hail storms and other natural calamities which result in fruit drop must be compensated suitable. As the government of India every year announces the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for the food grains, pulses, oilseeds and certain other crops; MSP should also be declared for various fruit crops. This would at least assure the farmers that they would not have to sell their produce below that price declared by the government. Besides all these measures, the country has nearly India has 240 millions of cultivable waste land which can be brought under horticultural crops without curtailing the area under food crops through well planned policy interventions.
(The authors are from Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu; can be reached at [email protected])
