Answer:

Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with art and science of fruits, vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants. It offers high rate of returns as:

♤ Fruits and vegetables give 4-10 times the return from other crop groups namely cereals, pulses and oilseeds.

♤ A one per cent shift in area from non-horticultural crops to horticultural crops adds

0.46 percentage points to growth rate of agriculture sector.

The higher rate of returns from horticulture is also backed by favourable demand and supply factors. For example -

♤ Changes in taste and preferences - Due to changes in taste, preferences and food habits, the consumption pattern in India has been shifting towards fruits and vegetables.

♤ Increasing incomes - 1 per cent increase in per capita expenditure results in 1.9% and 1.02% increase in demand for fruits and vegetables respectively. Thus, per capita intake of fruits and vegetables in the country will keep rising in coming years.

♤ Increasing imports - There is large deficiency of these items in Indian diet. India’s import of fruits is rising by 20 per cent per year. All these indicators suggest that demand side prospects for fruits and vegetables are very bright.

♤ Technological developments in horticultural crops have facilitated some diversification. Varieties of horticultural crops have been developed for cultivation in off season, under diverse climatic conditions and with various attributes to attract consumers.

Despite these factors the area under horticulture crops in the country has remained below 10 per cent. The major constraints for the growth in horticultural crops are:

♤ System of Marketing - Horticultural crops, particularly vegetables, are more popular with smaller size land holdings as they have advantage in terms of family labour required for labour intensive production. However, such farmers are severally constrained by scale factor in marketing of produce.

♤ Inadequate processing facilities - In most cases a horticultural crop does not come to maturity at the same time and harvestable produce is distributed over a span of a few weeks. Being perishable, these crops cannot be stored at home to make a economical lot for taking to market. And if not sold, it results in big post harvest loss

♤ Other constraints include very high growth in horticultural imports, large price spread between producers and end users, frequent and often violent price fluctuations, low level of processing, and very low post harvest value addition.

Various steps that are required in order to achieve the potential of this sector are as follows:

♤ Institutionalize cooperatives – It will help small growers to trade their produce in the market as combined harvest will be sufficient to trade in markets.

♤ Provide favorable market conditions - It is needed to give complete freedom to producers and buyers for sale/purchase throughout the country and take horticulture produce out of the purview of APMC act so that they do not need to sell compulsorily in the local mandis and can sell even its small produce directly in the market or can pool with other producers for marketing.

♤ Development of modern value chain - This has not been happening due to legal hurdles and restrictions on free and direct marketing. If the sector is deregulated then many innovative vegetable and fruit sellers in urban areas will be attracted to develop back-end linkage to get direct supply from the producers.

♤ Free marketing – It will also attract large investments from private sector as happened in the case of milk production

These require action both by the states and the Central government. The onus for freeing market for horticultural produce rests with the states while support of Central government is crucial for promoting producers’ organizations and fruits and vegetable processing.