Monday, 25 May 2026
Agrovision Foundation recently organised a webinar titled ‘Horticulture Development for Farmers’ prosperity’. Experts deliberated on how horticulture crops play a unique role in the Indian economy and most importantly in generating employment, enhancing farmer’s income and creating the surplus for exports. The Government of India’s role in horticulture was commendable on the strategies undertaken to double the income of farmers.
Experts like Dr Kumble Vinod Prabhu, PPV & FRA, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Dr Tarun Bajaj, Director, APEDA, Pushpendra Arya, Joint Director, National Horticulture Board (NHB), Dr PK Gupta, Director, NHRDF, Prashant Nandargikar, Director, Isha Agro Foundation, Dr Sandeep Mann, ICAR-CIPHET, PO PAU Ludhiana and Sunil Dutt, Branch Manager, ITC, discussed the crucial points on innovative technologies, schemes, government policies, better quality management for the development of horticulture sector in India.
Dr CD Mayee, Chairman, Advisory Council Agrovision, in his opening remarks welcomed all the panellists on behalf of Agrovision Foundation and said, “We are targeting to doubling the income of farmers and exports, as we are strong in horticulture. We have a slow processing system for our products and the time has come for surplus management.”
Dr Prabhu in his keynote address talked about profitability through improved productivity and assessed return through farmer’s rights.
He said, “Horticulture needs to be recognised largely as it will enable doubling of farmer’s income.”
Doubling the exports
Dr Bajaj emphasised export, national market and value addition processing. He said, “If we want to double the income of farmers, exports should be doubled. We exported $41M agri products last year. We are among the top ten countries in the world as far as export is concerned.”
Starting with his presentation, Dr Bajaj highlighted the importance of the food processing industry and the challenges in the agri export sector. He said, “During the last five years ending 2019-2020, the food processing sector has been growing at an average annual growth rate of around 10 per cent as compared to around 3.11 per cent in agriculture at 2011-12.”
He added, “We have to now look to new markets, new products and also strengthen existing markets.”
Government initiatives
Arya focussed on NHB schemes and government policies for horticulture promotion. He said that the primary motive of NHB is to develop horticulture and then integrate post-harvest management. Speaking about the recently launched scheme, Horticulture Cluster Development Program, Arya mentioned that the main objective of the programme is to address the concerns of the horticulture value chain, to reduce harvest and post-harvest losses, facilitate the introduction of innovative technologies and capacity building of stakeholders.
Game-changing technologies
Nandargikar highlighted the technologies used for small farmers. Briefing about PSAP (Potassium Salt and Active Phosphorous) technology he said, “PSAP is a revolutionary technology which increases bio-ethanol and oil-seeds production.”
He further said, “As tested by Premier Sugarcane, Sugar Research Institutes, SAU’s and ICAR-IISR, PSAP has been able to increase oilseeds and sugarcane production by 30 per cent. Technology that can impact on almost everything, reduces pesticide use by 50 per cent.”
Growth of horticulture
Gupta shared insights about technologies for enhancing horticulture development. He said, “Horticulture constitutes an important segment in agriculture occupying about 18 per cent (27.23 MH) of the net cultivated area of 142 MH. The horticulture production is 329.86 million tonnes in the year 2020-21. The production estimates are highest so far and it reflects an increase of 9.39 million tonnes in comparison to 2019-20.”
Dr Mann spoke about post-harvest practices, awareness and cold chain infrastructure. He suggested that public and private sectors should come forward for infrastructure development/FPO’s. “We must enhance small farm productivity and stability of production so that net income of farmers can be doubled by reducing the large gap between potential and actual yield per hectare and income. Further, low-cost infrastructures should be developed for farmers at the field level,” he added.
Fruit and vegetable value chain
Talking about fruit and vegetable space, Dutt said, “The fruit and vegetable market is dominated by the domestic trade of fresh fruit and vegetables and hence there is a good scope of complementing pulse and the frozen market as well as export of all the categories. We see various challenges in the value chain of the fruit and vegetable segment. One of the major issues is the availability of the processed foods.”
Ravi Boratkar, President, Agrovision concluded the session by thanking the panellists and said, “I think every speaker has further stressed that horticulture development can indeed bring prosperity to farmers and the more we concentrate on the horticulture development it will help accelerate the economy.”
