The third advance estimates released released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare said that horticultural crops output is expected to go up marginally to 313.85 million tonnes (mt) in 2018-19 compared with 311.71 mt produced in the previous year. Production of fruits and vegetables such as potato, onion, banana and citrus fruits will go up significantly.
How are vegetables expected to perform?
- production of vegetables is projected to go up to 185.88 mt the fruits production will be 98.57 mt
- Among vegetables, potato production is projected to increase to 53 mt and
- Increase of onion to 23.48 mt, but
- Marginal dip in tomato output to 19.39 mt.
What is the projection on fruits?
- The production of banana is slated to go up to 31.75 mt
- There will be a decline in the production of mangoes to 20.8 mt.
- Citrus fruits to jump to 13.2 mt.
- Apple production is expected to go upto 2.5 mt
Has the area under horticulture increased or decreased?
At 25.49 million hectares, the area under horticultural crops in 2018-19 remained more or less at the same as the previous year.
Any further projection?
A huge drop in the production of coconuts has adversely hit the plantation crop output, which is projected to be around 16.37 mt as against 18.08 mt in 2017-18.
- Coconut production is slated to go down to 14.75 mt
- Cashewnut production is also expected to be down by nearly 10 per cent this year.
- Even though overall spices production will be marginally up this year at 9.22 mt
- Chillies production is heavily affected. Compared with 2.15 mt produced last year, the estimated production this year is 1.69 mt.
- Garlic production, on the other hand, is expected to be bumper one this time.
What has the government done?
Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), a Centrally Sponsored Scheme is implemented for holistic growth of the horticulture sector covering fruits, vegetables, root and tuber crops, mushrooms, spices, flowers, aromatic plants, coconut, cashew and cocoa. Mission subsumes
- National Horticulture Mission (NHM),
- Horticulture Mission for North East & Himalayan States (HMNEH),
- National Horticulture Board (NHB),
- Coconut Development Board (CDB) and
- Central Institute for Horticulture (CIH), Nagaland.
All States/UTs are covered under MIDH.
Various interventions being taken under MIDH for the development of horticulture sector and to increase their income are given below:
- Increasing productivity through introduction of improved varieties, quality seeds and planting materials, protected cultivation, high density plantation, rejuvenation, precision farming and horticultural mechanization.
- Diversification to High Value Horticulture for orchards and Plantation crops, Vineyards, vegetable & flower gardens, Bee keeping, Mushroom cultivation, off season vegetables.
- Promoting Post Harvest Management through Cold Storage (CS), cold chain supply including pack houses, ripening chamber, reefer vehicle, etc.
- Market Linkages: Market infrastructure such as mobile vending cart, retail outlet, primary and wholesale markets. Creating direct market/farmers market.
- Aggregating farmers into Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO)/Farmer Interest Group (FIG) and promoting their tie up with Market Aggregators (MAs) and Financial Institutions (FIs).
