Horticulture faces acute shortage of quality planting material

Despite the rising need for horticultural crops in India, the sector is facing an acute shortage of quality planting material which makes it difficult for further growth of horticultural industry.

Further, an inadequate availability of storage and processing facility lead to a high rate of wastage in this sector.

“Horticulture sector is facing an acute shortage of planting material as most of the nurseries are unorganised and government agencies are unable to provide adequate quantity of quality planting material to the farmers,” H P Singh, deputy director general, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) said.

As per government estimates, hardly 30-40 per cent of the requirement of planting materials for horticultural crops is met through public sector agencies like state agricultural universities, state seed agencies, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research and such others.

Horticulture contributes 30 per cent of the agricultural gross domestic product despite 10 per cent of land under them. Due to the rising importance of this sector, planning commission has fixed seven per cent growth rate per annum for horticulture sector against four per cent for agricultural sector in this plan period.

Further, demand for this crop is also rising with the population growth and changing food habit of Indian population.

“Demand for horticultural crops has increased from 400 million tonne in 1995 to present level of 1200 million tonne. Consumption of horticultural produce in average diet has also increased to 35 per cent from 10 per cent in last 30 years,” Singh said.

However, productivity is yet to rise to meet the ever-increasing requirement.

As per the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), multiplication of plants in the fields instead of nurseries, distant transportation of plants with earth ball and selection of scion shoots (branch with multiplication capacity) from a diseased tree are some of the practices followed by the farmers which affect productivity.

“By 2012, the requirement of planting material for fruit plants is 1.4 billion, for plantation crops is 170 million and for vegetable seeds is 1.5 million tonnes,” Amrit Singh Sidhu, Director, IIHR said.

To meet the ever-incre-asing need for planting material, the government should have a uniform nursery rule for all states and Union Territories in the proposed Seed Act, he said.

Government is planning to formulate a new Seed Act by replacing Seeds Act, 1966. Though the proposed legislation was tabled in the Parliament in 2004, it has been put in cold storage since that time.