Horticulture production beats food grains production in India

By: Yash Gupte

The production of horticultural crops which consists of fruits, vegetables, spices, medicinal plants and plantation crops in 2021-22 grew by around 2 percent to 342.3 million tons from 334 million tons in 2020-21.

According to the Economic Survey 2022-23, the production of horticulture crops continue to be higher than the food grains production in the country. The production of food grains is estimated to be at 315.7 million tons in 2021-22 which is higher by 3.77 million tons than the production of food grains during 2020-21 but the production of horticulture crops is much higher than the production of food grains. The production of horticultural crops which consists of fruits, vegetables, spices, medicinal plants and plantation crops in 2021-22 grew by around 2 percent to 342.3 million tons from 334 million tons in 2020-21.

The horticulture is described as a "strong growth area" and "a source of buoyant growth and enhanced resilience for farmers." A record production of 342.3 million tons was achieved on an area of 28.0 million hectares, as per the third advance estimates (2021–2022). Out of the 55 horticulture clusters the government has identified, 12 have been chosen for the Cluster Development Program (CDP) pilot phase.

The production of fruits was estimated to be 107.24 million tons as against 102.48 million tons in 2020-21. Coming over to vegetables, production of vegetables was estimated to be 204.84 million tons as against 200.45 million tons in 2020-21. The production of onions has witnessed a massive increase from 26.64 million tons in 2020-21 to 31.27 million tons in 2021-22 whereas the production of tomatoes dropped from 21.18 million tons in 2020-21 to 20.33 million tons in 2021-22. The supply of tomato had decreased drastically in May and June 2022 due to change in climatic conditions that had resulted in pest attacks on tomato crops.

In case of fruits, the production of Banana witnessed a massive increase from 32,454 tons in the first advanced estimates of 2021-22 to 35,131 tons in the second advanced estimates of 2021-22. This is because the area under production increased from 880 thousand hectares to 959 thousand hectares. Though horticulture only occupies a small portion of the agricultural land, it produced 12.3 tons per hectare as opposed to agriculture's 2.3 tons per hectare in 2018-19. These figures show unequivocally that horticulture is capable of producing goods with a significantly higher value even though it occupies a small portion of the country's agricultural land.

Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare

The data clearly emphasizes that the horticulture production in India has been higher than the food grain production. India currently stands as the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, next to China. Government initiatives and programmes like the Mission for Integrated Development Horticulture (MIDH) provides a strong impetus to guarantee the horticulture sector's overall development in the country. MIDH is designed to leverage the geographical specialisation of horticulture clusters, promote integrated and market-led development of pre-production, production and post-harvest activities across the entire supply chain. The amount of land used for horticulture is steadily increasing because to initiatives like the MIDH that increase public awareness. According to a 2017 study by the Institute for Social and Economic Change, since the National Horticulture Mission programme was introduced, the average family income of horticulture farmers increased from 0.73 lakh to 1.30 lakh per year (an average increase of 78 percent).

One thing which must be noticed that though there has been no significant increase in the area under cultivation of horticultural crops from 27.74 million hectares to 28.08 million hectares, the production of the crops has been increased from 334.60 million tons in 2020-21 to 342.33 million tons in 2021-22.

Though there was an increase in production of majority of fruits and vegetables, the production of potato and tomato was estimated to decline. The production of potatoes was estimated to be 53.39 million tons in 2021-22 from 56.17 million tons in 2020-21. Also, there was an estimation of decline in the production of Tomatoes from 21.18 million tons in 2020-21 to 20.33 million tons in 2021-22.

Horticultural crops have brought a good fortune for the farmers but there are a few challenges which are still present. Horticulture is far more labor-intensive than the production of food grains because each plant on the farm needs to be cared for by the farmer. Because horticulture's input costs are so much greater than those of agriculture, many farmers find it challenging to switch from agriculture to horticulture. The lack of infrastructure, such as cold-storage facilities, right from the village level makes it challenging for those already engaged in horticulture farming to protect the high-value fruits and vegetables from the weather conditions. These challenges need to be overcome by the use of well-crafted government measures and technologically intensive farming methods.