Govt must respond to horticulture challenge by taking a more proactive role

Some significant agriculture trends emerging from the ministry's latest crop estimates for 2017-18 call for pertinent policy responses

The agriculture ministry’s latest crop estimates for 2017-18, which indicate that the output of horticulture has outstripped that of foodgrains for the sixth year in a row, also unfold some significant emerging trends in agriculture that call for pertinent policy responses. A notable point in this data is that while the foodgrain harvest has been oscillating, dipping markedly during the back-to-back drought years of 2014 and 2015, horticulture has maintained a steady uptrend, regardless of the monsoon’s performance. The area under vegetables, fruit and other horticultural products, such as spices, herbs, flowers and plantation crops, has also been expanding. Clearly, agriculture has begun to diversify with farmers and farm land shifting gradually to relatively lucrative and quick cash-yielding fruit and vegetable farming. This is a desirable drift that needs to be sustained. Horticulture, together with livestock husbandry and fisheries, comprises the high-value segment of agriculture, which, if prompted to grow to its potential, can mitigate farm distress.

 
This trend assumes significance also because it has come about without much official backing. Had the same kind of attention been paid to horticulture as has been the case with foodgrains, India could have become the world leader in this field. At present, India’s share in the global bazaar of fresh and processed fruit and vegetables is meagre though even today the country is the world’s second-largest producer of these items. Horticulture needs to be promoted for another reason as well. Thanks to gradual rise in income levels, the consumption of and, hence, demand for fruit and vegetables are growing while those for cereals are on the slide. Admittedly, priority to foodgrains was justified in the past to combat widespread hunger. This goal has, more or less, been achieved. So emphasis should now shift to augmenting the availability of relatively nutritious fruit and vegetables to alleviate malnutrition, which still persists.

This can be done by providing assured marketing at remunerative prices for horticultural produce the way it is proposed for many other crops. Equally important is to facilitate the development of post-harvest value chain of cold stores, refrigerated transportation and processing of perishable horticultural products. Promoting organised retail with backward linkages with growers can also help provide assured marketing at reasonable prices. Unfortunately, none of the fruit or vegetables figures in the present list of over 20 farm commodities for which the minimum support prices are routinely announced by the government. It is imperative to include in this list some key fruit and vegetables, notably the three main mass-consumed kitchen staples — tomato, onion and potato (dubbed quite aptly as TOP). These are the crops whose production and prices fluctuate the most. In 2017-18, too, the output of these commodities registered a decline, bucking the overall uptrend in horticulture production. The absence of stable import-export policies concerning these rapidly decaying products is partly to blame for their price volatility. Though a price stabilisation fund for perishable farm produce exists for years, it serves little purpose because of its meagre corpus and shoddy administration. It is time the government realised the need to create a prudent and longer-lasting policy environment to let the output of key vegetables and fruit move in tandem with their demand in the domestic and export markets. Otherwise, the welcome trend of farm diversification may not endure.