'Scale up current schemes in NE to tap horticulture potential'

Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh today emphasised the need to scale up ongoing interventions in north-eastern states in a bid to tap huge potential in horticulture sector.
"There exists tremendous potential in north eastern states for development of the horticulture sector and we need to ensure focused attention for harnessing available potential through scaling up ongoing interventions in north-eastern states," Singh said addressing a meeting at Umiam here.
Although, there has been a substantial breakthrough in horticulture production, the challenge lies in converting this into gains for farmer, the minister said in his speech copy.
"We still have a long way to go in establishing a robust cold chain system from farm to fork. Creation of infrastructure for post harvest management and value addition therefore are a high priority areas with focus on creating cold chain networks," he added.

Setting up of markets infrastructure has been linked with reforms in APMC Act to allow direct marketing of horticulture produce. Horticulture mechanisation is being promoted to bring in efficiency in horticulture production and harvesting operations, the Minister said.
Singh was speaking at an inter-session meeting of the Consultative Committee of the Union Agriculture Ministry that deliberated on challenges facing the horticulture sector.
The meeting also discussed the strategy for making the horticulture sector a key driver in transforming India's agrarian landscape by ensuring convergence between research institutions, state horticulture missions, livelihood programmes and entrepreneurship.
India is currently producing about 281 million tonnes of horticulture produce from an area of about 23 million hectare.