India’s minister for agriculture and food processing Shri Pawar praised record horticultural production last year but warned cold chain inefficiencies must be addressed.
Speaking at the National Conference on Horticulture Production and Productivity, Pawar told delegates substantial increases in production last year helped boost foreign exchange earnings to Rs140bn (US$2.8bn).
Production, however, had been hampered by a lack of cold chain infrastructure, he said before going on to list initiatives the government was involved in.
“While we have achieved considerable success on the production front, the supply chain issues still need to be addressed,” he said. “The Vegetable Initiative for Urban Clusters is an important step in this direction. To start with, the scheme is being implemented with focus on sustained supply of good quality vegetables to urban centres having a population of 1m and above.”
He explained the scheme placed special emphasis on promoting protected cultivation of vegetables in green houses and shade-net houses to improve productivity.
“Formation of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) and linkage with financial institutions through aggregators is an innovative feature of the scheme,” he said. “Over 62,000 farmers have already been mobilised into over 3,000 Farmer Interest Groups (FIG) and 50 Farmers Producers Organisations (FPOs) under this scheme,” said Pawar.
Another initiative the government was backing is the National Centre for Cold Chain Development (NCCD). Pawar said the centre would help address issues around cold chain development in the country, but much of its funding would need to come from industry.
“The NCCD will strive to develop standards and protocols related to cold chain besides organising training programmes for the stake holders of the cold chain Industry,” he said.“It would be relevant to add that we have set ourselves an ambitious target of 15m tonnes of additional cold storage capacity during the twelfth Five Year Plan as against 8.75m tonnes targeted during the eleventh plan.”
Pawar also emphasised the need to match the productivity standards of other nations.
This would involve the development and dissemination of technology, development of new varieties, production of healthy planting material and human resource development.
“We also have to strengthen our extension machinery to ensure that best horticulture practices reach the farmers,” he added. “Canopy management, which is one of the most crucial elements for health and productivity of horticulture crops is conspicuous by its absence. Our extension machinery must deliver on this.”
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