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Potential in horticulture remains untapped: Pawar

NEW DELHI: Emphasising the need for stimulating private investment in the horticulture sector, the central government has urged private sector and government agencies to work together to tap the “huge potential” in the sector.

Despite huge “production strength,” India had only 1.4 per cent of the total global market, with issues like traceability, market access and global standardisation being the major constraints.

Addressing a Fruit and Vegetable Summit organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Confederation of the Indian Industry here on Monday, Union Agriculture and Food Minister Sharad Pawar bemoaned the slow pace of development of fruit and vegetable business. On one hand there were not enough value-adding linkages to the national missions, on the other the emerging fruit and vegetable value chains had remained sporadic in nature and were unable to face global competition.

Mr Pawar said that the stress on crop diversification in the last few years had led to horticultural production rising to 185.2 tonnes from 19.3 million hectare area. However, the sector remained constrained by widespread fragmentation in the supply chain, low productivity levels, and huge post harvest losses arising out of inadequate storage, cold chain and transport infrastructure, logistics and supply chain management.

As a result of these problems, there was very little value addition, for example, in the area of exports and food processing. In India less than 2 per cent of the fruits and vegetables produced were processed, as against 65 per cent in the U.S., 70 per cent in Brazil, 78 per cent in the Philippines, 80 per cent in South Africa and 83 per cent in Malaysia.

Due to rapid expansion of internal and external market and processing industries, it was essential to develop such techniques that reduced post harvest losses, added value and improved the quality of the product. The Minister called for adoption of modern technology and making use of the provisions under the National Horticulture Mission, the Indian Council of Agriculture Research and the State Agriculture Universities to rejuvenate the sector.

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