Horticulture

• India witnessed sharper increase in acreage of horticulture crops compared to foodgrains over the last five years (from 2012 to 2014-15).
• Between 2012 to 2014-15 there has been an increase of 10% in horticulture production compared to an increase of 6% in foodgrains.
• Since 2012-13, the production of horticulture has outpaced the production of foodgrains.
• Over the last decade, the area under horticulture increased by about 3.1% per annum and annual production increased by about 6%.
• During 2015-16 the production of horticulture crops was about 286.2 million tonnes from an area of 24.47 million hectares.
• The production of fruits has increased from 28,632 thousand tonnes to 90,183 thousand tonnes and the production of vegetables has increased from 58,532 thousand tonnes to 1,69,064 thousand tonnes since 1991-92 to 2015-16.
• Among the horticulture crops, vegetables constitute more than 50% of total horticulture production. The export growth of fresh fruits and vegetables in terms of value is around 14% and of processed fruits and vegetables is around 16%.
• The vegetable and fruit segments of the horticulture sector can be key drivers of agricultural growth and can be further developed by appropriate investments in harvesting, low cost storage facilities and processing technologies along with development of marketing infrastructure.

The key challenge that the horticulture sector faces in India are post-harvest losses, availability of quality planting material and lack of market access for horticultural produce of small farmers. The combined wastage (harvest and post-harvest) for horticulture crops between 5 to 15% in the case of fruits and vegetables is very high, compared to the range of 5 to 6% in the case of cereals, around 6 to 8 per cent for pulses and 5 to 10% for oilseeds.