Fruits and Vegetables growth in India India Grows Close to 270 Million Tonne Fruits and Vegetables

Crop Clusters, Farmer-Producer Organisations, Cold Storage Capacity Help in Fast Growth in Eleventh Plan. Recently Approved Mission on Integrated Growth of Horticulture Poised to Spur Growth Further With a production of 269 million tonnes in 2012-13, the horticulture sector has emerged as a major contributor to the food basket of the country. Horticulture production grew by more than 8% during the last decade. As compared to the production of 257 million tonnes in the previous year and 215 million tonnes
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about five years ago, there has been significant jump in the horticulture production, thereby leading to higher per capita availability of horticulture produce like fruits and vegetables having high domestic consumption, besides other commodities like spices, cashew etc. having high export potential. India is now the world's largest producer of Mango, Banana, Papaya, Pomegranate, Sapota, Aonla and Okra and has the second highest position in Brinjal, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Onion, Potato and Peas. Tomatoes are also produced in sizable quantity. This has been possible on account of the Governmental interventions under the schemes of National Horticulture Mission (NHM), Horticulture Mission for North East and Himalayas States (HMNEH), National Mission on Micro Irrigation (NMMI), National Horticulture Board (NHB), Coconut Development Board (CDB) and Vegetable Initiative for Urban Clusters(VIUC). While the NHM covers 66 crop clusters in 383 districts in 18 States & 4 UTs, the coverage is in all the districts of HMNEH States. Under NMMI, about 4 million hectares have been brought under improved irrigation systems such as drip and sprinkler irrigation. Under VIUC scheme, about 4 lakh farmers were mobilized into 23,000 Farmer Interest Groups (FIGs) and 192 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), besides providing technical support and assistance for taking up cultivation of vegetables in open field and protected cover. National Centre for Cold Chain Development (NCCD) has been addressing the issues on cold chain infrastructure particularly in introducing standards and protocols related to cold chain testing, verification, certification and accreditation as per International norms. Cold storage capacity of over 30 million tonnes has been created out of which about 2 million tonnes was created during the last two years. The momentum generated during XIth Plan will be accelerated during the XIIth plan by implementing the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), by subsuming six ongoing schemes on horticulture. The Mission would give focus on production of quality planting material, enhancement of production through productivity improvement measures, creation of infrastructure for reducing post
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harvest losses, besides setting up markets for improved marketing of horticulture produce. Mobilization of farmers into Farmer Producer Organizations and strengthening of horticulture statistics are added feature of the scheme. MIDH will cover all states & UTs in the country and would cover all horticulture crops, including bamboo.

22-February-2014 15:30 IST Press Information Bureau Government of India Ministry of Agriculture

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